W
e have been involved on both sides of collecting. The first was the sale of a renown collection.
The second bringing a new collector into the hobby.
The first started in 2001. It was centered on the sale of the incomparable Setton Collection of France. It was being managed by the international broker extraordinaire, Jay Felter. I was asked by Jay to direct an advertising campaign in Cavallino Magazine, Motorsport, F1 Magazine and Vintage Racecar. Jay's idea was pleasantly ingenious. Rather than run the usual high end broker beauty shot layout, we would visually anchor each car to its provenance with photographs taken on-track by some of the finest competition photographers. This involved extensive provenance research and photographic archive searches. You can take a look at some here.
The second started in 2005. Through the reference of friends, I was asked by someone to direct the acquisition of a collection. The back story here is quite endearing. The guy's wife had just gone through a near-thing bout of Cancer. His close attentiveness to the situation resulted in his trimming his corporate involvement to a minimum. It did not go unnoticed, or unappreciated. Coming out the other side she suggested that he do something for himself, something he always wanted to do, like collect some cars.
Our hero, who for privacy we will refer to as Mark, was having one problem; he had come out of the dot com situation with his purse and operations intact. So every time he went to look at cars, all anyone saw was his wallet. He was thus offered second tier cars at premium prices. Very premium prices.
His situation was being embarrassingly compounded by the fact the in 2004 - '05, the classic car market was in the tank. As example the high flying Daytonas of a decade earlier, at their 500 - 800k prices could now be gotten for 135 to 155k.
Examples were rife throughout the market, from E Jags and Maserati Mistrals to old comp Ferrari. That 410 Ferrari that just sold at Monterey for 22M? During this period '04 - '06, Duncan Hamilton was offering it for 5.5M Which means he was in it a couple, three Mill, having acquired it from a Swiss heir. For those keeping score, that is 7.8M in today's money.
Now the reference of mutual friends had been based on the book Metal Memory: the mystery of 0718. This was a rather thorough provenance of the sixth 1958 250 Testa Rossa. A car that had been incorrectly written about in numerous books and magazines for over twenty years. So the strategy behind establishing this new collection was to perform a full and formal provenance on every car prior to acquisition.
This was a quiet, personal, operation well beyond the hype and stage lights of the all too numerous traveling circus auctions, that are reducing Concours to merchandizing events.
To speak to the events and tone of the operation I have selected from the copious call notes taken, a letter to a friend filling him in. The links there will take you to the cars discussed.
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