Sotheby's, a painful mistake
Auction house RM Sotheby's auctioned the oldest Porsche 356 predecessor, the 1939 Porsche Type 64 @ Monterey, CA.
This was covered in advance on each news site and car information site, so many of you may be familiar with it.
There are various articles about what kind of car this Porsche Type 64 is, so please refer to that for details on the car.
Reference article:
◆ (Autocar) The oldest Porsche type 64, what kind of car is exhibited? Expected winning bid of 2.2 billion yen
◆ (GQ Japan) Expected price over 2.2 billion yen! What is the "oldest Porsche" that can be auctioned? ──What kind of car is the phantom "Type 64" !?
Porsche Type 64 auction winning bid result
The result of this car being auctioned on August 17, 2019 local time ... The result was not successful because the amount did not reach the set minimum bid price.
Therefore, even at this point, it is still "Still For Sale" (still on sale) on the Sotheby's site (as of August 19, 2019).
Click here for details on the 1939 Porsche Type64 Sotheby's
Here, if the only result is that "the bidders' desired purchase price did not reach the minimum winning bid," the result may have ended with "sorry." Hmm.
But ... this time, how.
Sotheby's, an auction house, had made a painful mistake.
It's unclear if it didn't sell because of that, but it seems that many people think that it didn't sell because of the mistake of Sotheby's this time as a way of psychological movement of people.
Sotheby's broke at Porsche 64 auction
So what did Sotheby's do?
Even before the auction was held, the estimated winning bid for this car was said to be "20 million dollars" (about 2.2 billion yen). Therefore, at the start of the auction, the starting price of the auction price should have been "a price below 20 million dollars", or at least "starting from 20 million dollars".
However, at the moment when this car appeared at the auction site and the auction started, the starting price of the first posted auction was suddenly "30 million dollars" (about 3.2 billion yen).
The venue is already noisy. After all, it's a start from a tremendous amount of money, with the assumed winning bid price greatly shaken off from the beginning.
Furthermore, the auction bid started at once from there, and the price was rising steadily with great momentum, "40 million, 50 million, 60 million ..."
And finally, it ended up being "70 million dollars !!".
The excitement of the venue is already MAX. Like "Yes, 70 million dollars ?!"
That's about 7.5 billion yen in Japanese yen. Even if it was said that the estimated winning bid would be about 2.2 billion yen, everyone was surprised, but the price bid for the auction in front of me lightly exceeded 7 billion yen. It is.
Only! !!
Sotheby's notices this mistake when it finally reaches $ 70 million.
Yes, it was discovered that the initial bid start price was actually "13 million" instead of "30 million".
And it turned out that the "70 million" that was finally priced was actually "17 million". The price display has also been revised at once. No, this is too much of a painful mistake.
Is the cause of Sotheby's mistakes misunderstanding of English pronunciation?
In English, the pronunciations of 13 and 30, and 17 and 70, respectively, are as follows:
13 → Thirteen
30 → Thirty
17 → Seventeen
70 → Seventy
The person who heard the bid information (it seems that the English accent of the person who gave the numbers is quite unique?) Misunderstood these pronunciations, and it seems that 13 was 30 and 17 was 70. ..
Do Sotheby's people who live in English-speaking countries, whose native language is English, and who are bidding from all over the world make such mistakes? !! What's more, at the Porsche Type 64 auction that the world was paying attention to? !! It feels like ... but this mistake has really happened. I'm sure the people of Sotheby's were also excited ...
"The current bid price is 70 million dollars !!"
"Oh, no, 17 million, 17 million. 17, not 70."
With the announcement, the tone down at once. Or rather, booing.
That's right. After being so excited, it's natural for everyone to say "Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry".
After this, the Sotheby's person said, "Now, it's 17 million, 17 million!", But no more bids were accepted.
The auction ended with such a flow, and as a result, the auction ended as it was without reaching the lowest bid price.
It's a disappointing result.
And Sotheby's had a fatal bad reputation. Porsche type 64, a car that makes a lot of talk.
Porsche Type 64 auction video at Sotheby's
You can see the video of the actual auction below.
Video title: RM Sotheby's Botches Monterey 2019 1939 Porsche Type 64 Auction! $70 million to $17 million
The video posted on this Instagram is more from everyone at the venue, "The bid price has risen to 7 billion, the heat up in the venue, it has become super exciting ... From ..., it has been corrected to 1.7 billion at once. You can see the state of "disappointed booing" (laughs) ↓
Click here for the introduction video of Porsche Type 64 posted by Sotheby's.
Video Title: Monterey 2019: Porsche Type 64 – An Origin Story
I'm Rika, the author of this article. Ever since Porsche 911 became my favorite car, I've become totally addicted to Porsche, and I can't stop loving Porsche, so I started this blog. My favorite cars are 911 Carrera (991.2), 911 Carrera Cabriolet (992.1), and 911 Carrera T (992.1).
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