When I was given this assignment, I thought that on the face of it, well, it’s as easy as it gets.
“Write a blog about the favourite lot we sold in 2021”
It turns out, that I was wrong.
Last year, we sold 3 original Andy Warhol works, which, as an artist and lover of art (specifically pop art) myself, should be the easy answer. But something was nagging at me. Is that answer too easy, and, more importantly, is my personal investment in something the right criteria on which to base my decision? So, what factors should I consider in picking and sharing with you, my favourite lot of 2021?
At William George, we live and breathe our values every day, which means it would be remiss of me not to consider these first and foremost.
“We lead with our values. We are different because we measure our success against our values not against our numbers.”
We are a business, we have wages to pay, so of course when something sells for mega bucks, we are nothing but happy. But that’s not what makes us tick.
“We keep things simple, and we always seek to better ourselves”. We don’t always get it right. We try to be as transparent and clear with our descriptions and disclaimers, but sometimes, we overlook something, or we receive feedback from our bidders which give us that opportunity to improve service. When we run the next successful auction, with the improvements you asked us for, and therefor increased bidder satisfaction, well that’s a good feeling. But not the feeling of the year.
“We take responsibility for our planet”. We are lucky to be involved in the circular economy. Every refurbished laptop, pallet of untested returns or container of graded textiles that go to export, we are constantly diverting thousands of tonnes from landfill, and at the same time, extending the life of these products whilst making them more accessible to a new type of buyer. Everything we sell goes with a feel-good factor.
“We keep our promises”. We know the auction world is filled with ‘sold as seen’ philosophies, and we consider ourselves to have an entirely new philosophy and approach to auctioning. I’m going to sound cheesy here but everything we sell is only offered for auction if we’re confident that you’ll be happy with it.
Right, so to the task at hand. Try as I might, there are so many lots I’ve loved over the past year, too many to narrow down to one. So I will give you my 3 favourites, and tell you why.
I’m cheating, it’s not a particular lot but a particular auction series. Our Sunday “No Reserve Garden Auctions” have been incredibly successful for our vendor. Since working with us they have had to recruit an additional three members of staff and expand their warehouse by 60% to handle the volume. It’s a great success story as we love our vendors to grow with us.
Andy Warhol “Ladies and Gentleman” signed silkscreen. Warhol is a seminal and cult artist and style icon, so having the opportunity to sell not one but three of his works this year was definitely a highlight. This is my pick of the three.
Gandhi’s Glasses.
I think the title says it all. Just an incredible find, and we were very proud to have been approached with these. It was great researching, learning and authenticating this item, exciting to list it and see the interest in the item and delivering a great final hammer for the vendor. More of the same this year please.
If you've got something juicy to list with us, visit our Seller Hub to find out more.