Why Omegamania was once in a lifetime -- Antiquorum economics
Auction total -- CHF 6,536,911, which is roughly $5,400,000
Antiquorum's share is the 18% buyers premium and 15% from the sellers, or 33%, with both amounts dropping at higher auction prices
So the revenues were about $1,800,000.
How much did it cost to rent vast space at the finest hotels at 12 sites around the world, have 6 or more of your staff at each site for 2 or 3 days? And give away catalogs to what seems like every retailer in the US? And generate publicity enough to get on CNN?
Hotel and travel cost -- say $50,000 x 12 = $600,000
Catalogs -- say $10,000
PR -- say $40,000
Now I don't know if these estimates are accurate, but just walk through the calculation with me.
So costs were at least $650,000.
Nice profit: $1,800,000 - $650,000 = $1,150,000.
Except for one thing -- Omegamania brought in three times the auction estimate. If the estimate was what they really expected, and my cost accurate, Antiquorum would have broken even.
That's why I think this event happened because of Omega's corporate involvement, and Omega footed a lot of the bill. And Omega probably made money on it. I don't mean in reputation -- I mean cold hard cash - right now money.
One other thing:
-- only 147 lots were identified as from collectors
-- 10 were identified as from the Omega Musuem
-- 4 are identified as prototypes and no owners noted
-- 66 have no notation, and were apparently owned by Omega (such as the No. 1s sold)
This sale could not have taken place without Omega's involvement, to an unusual degree. It appears Omega provided over half the lots.
By the way, Omega may have had a better deal with Antiquorum than 15% of price sold for the lots they provided -- or worse, if Antiquorum paid for the hotel and travel costs. But Omega got the largest portion of the auction price of the lots sold -- because they owned them and their lots were some of the most expensive! I suspect they recovered any costs they might have incurred with PR and the world tour and made some "right now money".
I still think this was a once in a lifetime event. There may be other Omega thematic auctions, but I don't think we will see 10 items from the Omega Museum again, or Omega providing over half the lots again or a 12 stop world tour again.
Will Omega do this again? They don't have that many number ones left!
And even if there is another, similar event . . . there will only be one Omegamania, the first Omega thematic auction.
If time is money, I'll spend my money on time
Sam a/k/a Hewybaby
Answer:
The PR value was worth millions more. Spots on CNN and Fox News. Newpaper stories in at least 100 major papers. The Omega name
was everywhere not to mention all over fleabay. That in itself is priceless. Future sales will tell the story. A carefully planned system of getting the Omega name to the public. I'll bet it worked well.
jim
Answer:
Two errors - Antiquorum only made $1.5mm The $5.4mm is with the buyers premium, thus the auction proceeds were $5.4 million/118% or $4.6 million.
Antiquorum's share was 33% fo $4.6 million, or about $1.5 million.
The unlabeled source items were a count of 139 items, not 66
From collectors 147
From Museum 10
Prototypes 4
Other 139
Total 300
If time is money, I'll spend my money on time
Sam a/k/a Hewybaby
Answer:
opening all of those eyes to Omega that didn't even consider the brand before...only time will tell but even before this coverage I had already heard from many whom I wouldn't expect are interested in Omega over other brands.
"Semper Ubi Sub Ubi"
Answer:
**Speedmaster Professional-3570.50** **Speedmaster Professional Moonphase-3576.50**
According to its maker it takes 14 months to make 195 individual parts and 80 hand operations to assemble. When finished it was apparent it was 50 years ahead of its time.
It is currently undergoing modifications to handle even more extreme conditions and temperature variations:
Omega Speedmaster Professional
source: Omega
The following link to AWCI will help you find a Certified Watchmaker/Repair Facility in your area:http://www.watch-clock-makers.org/
Collectors - I think that Omegamania has been a wash for collectors. The value of their collections may have increased, but they may have to pay more for new additions. It's a win for sellers and "lose" for buyers.
Answer:
... maybe I need to go back to work tonight. ;~)) As I said before, the provenance provided by being part of this auction will likely cause these 300 lots to be worth a premium in the future, regardless of the actual market value of the watch itself.
Let's see if anything trickles down to the lower level auctions (i.e. eBay). We'll know pretty soon.
Sam, I'll be looking forward to finding out which bid panned out for you.
Take care,
gatorcpa
Answer:
I wonder if with the inflated prices, can someone claim a higher insurance value?