Rare Book Monthly
A Case of Good Taste and Bad Timing
In 2007 he was diagnosed with cancer. He disengaged from work to focus on illness and continued to collect for another year before accepting that his pursuit of important maps was ending. Over the next year he concluded that auction was his best alternative for selling. Private advisers suggested he direct the sale himself rather than shift the burden to heirs. He had spent a half a dozen years learning about maps, learning to appreciate their complexity and value, believed in the importance of knowledge, and did not expect his children to pursue the subject with the necessary intensity. He had dealt with investments most of his adult life and come to believe that information always trumps innocence. He bought maps born of passion. He would sell now as a duty.
At the same time the stock market was declining. Retrieving his investment would become important.
The decision to choose Sotheby's was straightforward. By reputation and experience he favored them. No other house was seriously considered. The standard consignment fee for single owner sales is 10%. The deal was done at 4%. When the contract was signed on September 17th, 2009, the BP was trading at $1.65, the horizon clear. Mr. Benevento figured that prospects for a currency play between the pound and dollar favored the pound. He would engage in a little natural arbitrage. The maps were primarily European and World again confirming a European, if not London, venue. Sotheby's responded with a single owner sale, 2,000 catalogues to be distributed, a limited number of them hard bound. The offer sheet signed, the material was shipped to England on December 1st, the sale date projected for late spring later set for the afternoon of May 6th.
Later in December, in discussing the sale with this writer, the idea of including source, date and price information, a la the de Orbe Novo Sale, was broached. Frank then brought the idea to Sotheby's and later reported they didn't feel it would be helpful. It was dropped. Frank subsequently raised a second idea - of extending terms to buyers. He gathered that this was acceptable to Sotheby's but did not immediately understand that such terms would be communicated quietly, without fanfare, only to bidders inquiring for them. It turns out such terms are rarely publicized. In the ensuing two months only one bidder, Graham Arader of New York, requested and received them. Later, when Mr. Arader dominated the purchasing, buying a quarter of the lots and spending almost 40% of the total, the possibility that credit was an important factor emerged.
On April 6th, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called a general election for May 6th. The date of the Benevento sale long since settled, the elaborate full color catalogue was about to be released. Two events would occur in London on May 6th.
Come sale day the auction room was mostly empty. At 2:30 pm in London as the sale was getting underway, in New York it was 9:30 am, and the New York Stock Exchange opening about even before a few hours later collapsing on a sell-side imbalance. This would be one of those days. Mr. Arader, himself in New York, commanded the sale, bidding by phone as is his norm. Seventy-eight percent of the lots sold, seventy-percent of them at or below the low estimate. A wealthy bidder from Chicago, someone introduced to Sotheby's by Mr. Benevento, was an important participant, bidding on eight expensive lots, winning two. On the six items this bidder pursed but didn't win other bidders bid more when confronted with competition. Many other items fell to walk-away bids, that is, offers at or below the low estimate. In the aftermath Mr. Benevento was left wondering if Sotheby's could have done more.
