ITK 03 - The Whole is Worth More Than the Sum of its Parts
Christie’s. The Magnificent Sachsen-Meiningen Set of Audubon’s Birds of America: Friday 25 June 2004. New York: Christie’s, 2004.
More is more…
When thinking about the value of personal property, an appraiser must consider its identity, and its current integrity in the context of the creator’s intentions. Artists’ installations, and large collections are examples of properties that may have higher value by form and function as an entity, than if considering the value of its components.
The market supports and demonstrates how value can be affected when a complete unit or set is marketed or sold as opposed to single units. Principles of connoisseurship drive the market no matter what the property. Assuming comparisons are drawn from similarly ranking properties, that include but are not limited to quality of materials and workmanship, scale, authorship, provenance, authenticity, originality of design and technical aspects, intrinsic hierarchy within its category, and condition, it does not matter if one is discussing an Yayoi Kusama installation, a well-known complete room setting from a movie, a collection of sports memorabilia, or the well-known and preserved contents of an important artist’s studio.
Take for example an early subscriber’s set of John James Audubon’s Birds of America, 1827-1838. Even missing several plates, and one of the few unbound copies in existence, a decision to sell it at auction by the plate rather than as a set resulted in a sale at more than $5.7 million; however, this was approximately 44% lower than a bonafide offer of more than $10 million made prior to the sale. Other sets have since come to the market and have sold for as much as $11 million.
