Fine Jewellery continues to weather the financial storm with solid results acheived at a Bonhams and Goodman auction in Sydney on June 30th.

The day began with a 415 lot Affordable Jewellery auction which sold a remarkable 91.5% by volume and 108% by value, followed by the 248 lot Fine Jewellery auction in the evening. Solitaire diamond rings were popular with highlights including a 3.01ct diamond selling for $31,200 against a pre-sale estimate of $15,000 - 20,000 and a 2.45ct diamond selling for $66,000 with a pre-sale estimate of $55,000 - 75,000.

The combined auction total for the day was $1,119,012 IBP with 87% sold by volume and 58% sold by value.

www.bonhamsandgoodman.com.au/

Image: A fine Art Deco 18ct white gold sapphire
and diamond plaque brooch
Sold for $9,300

Enthusiasts and collectors paid a record $2.4 million for 49 rare, numerical New South Wales numberplates in Sydney on Thursday night (June 18), comfortably exceeding expectations and blowing away any notions of a recession.

Conducted by Shannons for the RTA, the auction resulted in an average sale price of $51,000 for the 49 plates on offer, easily topping the $41,000 average achieved at Shannons’ previous auction of 100 special RTA plates in November 2006.

The top-selling lot of the night was the black and white three-digit plate ‘215′ that made $115,000. It was followed closely by ‘214”($110,000) and ‘229′ ($94,000).
Three ‘Choose your own’ plates where purchasers could select a personal numeral-only combination sold for $60,000, $34,000 and $30,000.

However the result that captured most attention was the sale of the NSW Pink Plate ‘922′, with 25 per cent of the sale price going to the McGrath Foundation to help fund breast cancer care nurses and raise awareness in young women in NSW.

Sydney lawyer Stephen Aroney was the successful bidder, paying $74,000 for the unique plate, which he plans to keep in the family and ultimately give to his daughter, now aged 3.

“I went to the auction with my brother-in-law who is a passionate collector intending to buy a three digit plate as an investment, but missed out of several I bid for,” he said.

“Then the Pink Plate came up; I made a couple of bids; and then the hammer fell - I was thrilled to get it. It’s the only pink number plate in NSW and I’m planning to keep it in the family.”

This morning Mr Aroney was proudly showing miniatures of the plate to colleagues at his Sydney law firm.

“We have previously held small staff functions to raise money for breast cancer awareness and men’s health and so I’m delighted that some of the proceeds from this plate are going to the McGrath Foundation,” he said.

Shannons National Auction Manager, Christophe Boribon, said he was “delighted” with the result. “We were astounded with the $4.1 million outcome from our 2006 RTA plate auction, but this sale has easily surpassed that in average sale prices,” he said.

“There were around 250 people in the auction room and they were all there to buy.

“It’s great to see plate values bounce back and it would seem that we are now truly shedding the recession blues.”

For RTA plate auction results visit www.shannons.com.au

Bonhams & Goodman’s growing Collectors’ Motor Car team has appointed two further specialists, expanding the department into Victoria and Western Australia to assist with national and international consignments.

Cath Davison has taken on the role of Assistant Specialist, Collectors’ Motor Cars and will be based in the Melbourne office. Cath brings more than 20 years of experience in the motor racing industry including running a successful marketing/hospitality company for classic sports car rallying and Formula 1 Grand Prix. Sir Jackie Stewart, Jaguar Racing Limited and Michelin were among her premier clients.

Cath comes from a motoring Dynasty in Australia, her father Lex Davison won no fewer than four Australian Grand Prix. Her brothers raced also and now her three nephews Alex, Will and James are all contending in major National and International racing series. Cath has enjoyed collecting sports cars and British motorcycles and has competed in various events in particular Targa Tasmania, Classic Adelaide and the infamous La Carrera Panamericana road race in Mexico in marques such as Alfa Romeo and Aston Martin.

Robert Glover, National Head of Collectors’ Motor Cars, said “Cath has racing in the blood and is the ideal person to head up the department in Victoria having lived and breathed performance cars all her life. Her appointment in Melbourne will provide increased personal contact with our clients which will be very beneficial to our growing department.”

In Western Australia Graeme Cocks, curator of Peter Briggs’ collections at York (and previously Fremantle), has agreed to join the B&G team as a specialist consultant to the motoring department. Graeme is an avid car enthusiast and his experience in looking after the Briggs collection has provided him with a wealth of knowledge that will be invaluable to Bonhams & Goodman and our clients alike. Graeme’s role will be to support the head office in Sydney by consigning nationally and internationally significant cars and motorcycles for our East Coast sales.

www.bonhamsandgoodman.com.au

The June Bay East Antiques & Interiors sale comprises a select offering of antique and contemporary pieces, exclusively from private collections.

Highlights include a collection of Chinese and Japanese cloisonne, Art Deco furniture and decorative arts, Georgian period English and Irish silver, William IV and early Victorian furniture, a collection of French tapestries, and English pottery and porcelain from Royal Doulton, Royal Crown Derby, Moore Bros., and Royal Worcester.

Breaking with tradition, furniture will be sold first at 11am, followed by cabinet lots at 1pm, instead of running both auctions at the same time.

www.bonhamsandgoodman.com.au

Bonhams & Goodman has announced that an exceptionally rare natural fancy blue and pink diamond ring will be the highlight of the June Fine Jewellery auction in Sydney. Weighing in at 1.24ct, a natural blue diamond of this size and calibre has never before been offered at auction in Australia and only a handful are sold internationally each year. Estimated at $250,000 - 350,000, the ring is expected to be hotly contested at auction due to its rarity and increasing value.

Natural blue diamonds are amongst the rarest of coloured diamonds in the world. Their unique colour is due to the presence of minute amounts of the element boron incorporated into the crystal during formation over a hundred million years ago.

Historically, blue diamonds originated from the fabled Kollur diamond mines near Golconda in India. The first recorded reference comes to us through the travelogues of the intrepid 17th century French traveller and gem merchant Jean-Baptiste Tavernier. Tavernier’s principle client was Louis XIV. Amongst other stones he discovered for the monarch on his Indian travels was a very large and unique blue diamond christened the French Blue. The stone’s subsequent owners have included Queen Marie Antoinette, American socialite Evalyn Walsh Mclean and diamond merchant Harry Winston. Renamed the Hope Diamond, the 45ct blue diamond now resides at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington.

The Indian deposits have since been worked out and so nearly all the blue diamonds that appear on the market today come from the Cullinan (formerly Premier) Mine near Pretoria in South Africa. On May 12 this year in Geneva a new world record price for a fancy vivid blue diamond was set as well as a new world record price per carat for any gemstone sold at auction. A 7.03ct blue diamond from the Cullinan mine was hammered for $9.5 million US. Unlike most blue diamonds which contain grey as the secondary colour, the stone offered in lot 130 is of a pure and unique blue colour.

The Fine and Affordable Jewellery auctions will also feature a superb collection of over 650 lots of fine, antique, contemporary jewellery and prestigious watches.

The collection includes jewellery by Cartier, Tiffany, Chopard and Paspaley, certified white, yellow and pink solitaire diamonds, watches by Rolex, Cartier and Chanel offered on behalf of several deceased estates, private vendors and unreserved stock in trade in the matter of Van Dieman Mines P/L Administrators Appointed.

Monday 29 June

Session 1: Affordable Jewellery, 11am

Session 2: Fine Jewellery, 6pm

All catalogue descriptions are guaranteed, estimates are generally 25% to 30% of retail.

www.bonhamsandgoodman.com.au/

TheInternetCompany, Inc., Princeton, N.J., announced today that it plans to auction the domain name, “Wealth.com”, through a private auction being run by Sedo, Cambridge, Mass., the leading secondary domain marketplace. The auction will be held on June 25, 2009. Bidders must be pre-qualified by June 15, 2009.

The sale comes amidst a growing industry trend of leveraging descriptive or generic domain names. Domain names that describe a company’s product or service, or that contain popular search terms are particularly valuable because they can improve a website’s organic search ranking and save on PPC (pay-per-click) advertising costs. The term “wealth,” for example, is searched over 1.5 million times a month through Google, resulting in over 185 million search results in the U.S. alone.

In fact, several of the world’s leading companies have already successfully implemented this strategy, by investing in premium generic domains and using them to redirect to their main business website. Examples include: Bank of America (Loans.com), Monster.com (Jobs.com), Fidelity (Funds.com) and CNN.com (Money.com).

The top five prices paid for a domain name in 2009 underscore the value of strong generic names: $5.1 million for Toys.com; $1.7 million each for Fly.com and Auction.com. The all time publicized record for a domain name is Fund.com at $9.9 million, with some private domain sales speculated to have broken that record.

“These domains have the power to dramatically improve company web traffic and search results, while creating instant brand credibility that will last well beyond the economic downturn,” said Jeremiah Johnston, general counsel and chief operating officer, Sedo.com. “The Internet has been flooded with searches for finance as millions are re-evaluating their approach to wealth management.”

“We have owned ‘Wealth.com’ since [1996],” said Don Cook, vice president, TheInternetCompany, Inc. “Although we have had several attractive offers for the name over the years, we believe that now is the right time to monetize this asset and that an auction, rather than a traditional sale, is the best strategy.”

Sedo’s Wealth.com private auction will be held on Thursday, June 25 from approximately 12:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. EDT. Interested buyers must certify to bid by Monday, June 15 with Tessa Holcomb, senior broker and acquisition consultant. Tessa Holcomb can be reached at Tessa@Sedo.com or at 617-499-7242.

The Internet Company creates and invests in distinctive domain names. Founded in 1996 and based in Princeton, N.J., The Internet Company has developed and sold hundreds of domain names including Finance.com; Messenger.com; Magazine.com and Sweepstakes.com.

Web site: http://www.wealth.com/

Pickles Auctions now have an excess weather damaged vehicles and are charged with selling these on to the public. There’s never been a better opportunity for mechanics, motoring enthusiasts and the humble handyman to capitalise on the cut price cars now hitting the auction floors.

Recent extreme weather conditions across the country, and in particular in the Sunshine state, have put a major strain on insurance companies and their policy holders. Pickles Auctions has the task of selling those new and used cars, trucks, and other vehicles affected by the storms and floods on to the general public at bargain basement prices.

June 10 will see the first 2009 flood-damaged auction in Queensland. Pickles will put over 600 lots under the hammer at their existing Rocklea branch. And based on past auctions of this kind, bidders will be quick to snap them up. There will be a plethora of choice, with most makes and models available.

The Water-Affected Vehicle Auction will be held on Wednesday June 10, 2009 at 10.00am. Participants can bid onsite at 88 Grindle Road, Rocklea and view the vehicles at the same location the day prior to auction.

More auctions are set to follow as a result of the severity of the weather conditions, and consumers can keep a look out for further opportunities to grab a bargain through auction.

Pickles has long standing and solid relationships with Australia’s insurance industry and 40 years of auctioneering and valuations experience.

Pickles now offer more than 9,000 cars, trucks & machinery live online to choose from at any one time and are conducting in excess of 100 online auctions per month.

For more information please visit http://www.pickles.com.au