Youngs plans to lease back the building until the right replacement premises are found, hopefully closer to Richmond or Prahran, the home of the auction industry, than is its present location.
This means that even the lower end the market should emerge from a very trying period with an enhanced superstructure.
Youngs Auctions is one of four auction houses in Melbourne holding weekly auctions – its day is Friday - of mixed household goods comprising furniture, paintings, smalls and other second hand, antique and bric a brac. About 3 or 4 times a year the vintage and antique lots that have been accumulated through weekly consignments are sold in a "Special" sale.
Its move is a big one as the company will be leaving behind a building it has occupied from 1930 and which has been run for three generations by the Young family. The current generation, represented by Mr David Young said that the move was inevitable given the new multi storey building possibilities and the investment the old building would have required to update it.
Youngs Auctions was founded by Ern Young, and he was succeeded by his son Bill, who in turn was succeeded by his three sons. David is the oldest of these. Mr David Young said about 500 people usually view its auctions and attend its sales. But Youngs may still have to capitalise on its potential as its location was away from others in the industry and was still amazingly unknown to some of the stalwarts at the top of the art business until lately.
That changed somewhat with the sale of the collection of Richard and Fran Berry, who ran a Melbourne antiques shop, mostly out of Flinders Lane in the 1960s. The collection comprised 2266 lots and was sold in three tranches over two years in 2008 and 2009.
A short wooden Papuan ancestral figure sold for 40 times its top estimate: a $24,000 hammer price against a high estimate of $600; and a Chinese painting sold for a $95,000 hammer price, 32 times its $3000 top estimate.
A Ching dynasty pair of imperial yellow bowls also exceeded expectations, selling for $26,000 hammer, 13 times its top estimate of $2000, and $29,380 with buyer's premium.
Altogether the collection (with some outside entries in the final sale) grossed a better than expected $2.024 million including the 13 per cent buyer's premium
The development and property moves elsewhere in the business and new staff appointments suggest that the industry is now far more optimistic than it has been for sometime about its future.
Bonhams Australia is not replacing its managing director, Mr James Hendy who is moving to Bonhams San Francisco office, and have let other specialist staff go.
Mossgreen however continues to bulk up with more surprising new appointments announced and further appointments promised.
Mr Mark Fraser, the chairman of Bonhams Australia, will take over the responsibilities of Mr Hendy and in this he will now be competing for business against Mr John Dwyer who has been appointed to head its new art department which will hold specialised fine art sales twice a year in June and October.
Mr Dwyer, like the managing director of the newly merged Leski – Mossgreen Mr Paul Sumner, has a long history of employment in the auction industry.
John, with his father Paul Dwyer, were for many years part of the team at the old Leonard Joel family operation in Melbourne. That was during the golden years of sales of great old collections of Australian Impressionist paintings in the Malvern Town Hall
He subsequently worked for Christie's, Deutscher and Hackett and then Bonhams and Goodman with a stint in the gallery world at Savill Galleries as its Melbourne representative before setting up an art consultancy.
Mossgreen also topped up its specialist and management structure this week adding several newcomers with interesting backgrounds to its roll-call.
This puts Mossgreen alongside a throng of auction houses seriously looking for fresh fine art to sell in Australia. It has had a lot of success with single owner sales but mixed vendor sales of art have been a headache as the bigger names in that market have also found.
Mr Sumner concedes that the purchase and redevelopment of the new headquarters involved a lot of money but said ”You have to spend it to make it”. He claimed that consignments were rolling in and the calendar was fully booked until the end of June. The company's big investor is Mr Jack Gringlas who is chairman of he board
All the players it seems want the big ticket paintings which can be sold in reduced volume for a higher gross. This is in line with world trends for trophy paintings to be in keen demand and
the middle market to fall away as wealth inequality increases.
Mr Dwyer will be up against some old foes in the industry and he has the ties in the industry especially in traditional and modern paintings, but Deutscher and Hackett, Bonhams Australia and Sotheby's Australia are still way ahead.
Thanks to acquisition of the Reg Grundy Collection and Colin and Elizabeth Laverty Collection, Bonhams last year was the market leader in auction sales of fine art. It has closed off its decorative arts department, and the former head, Mr James Hendy, will move to San Francisco to become Bonhams Chief Operations Officer for North America.
Mr Hendy told the Australian Art Sales Digest that he was very excited to be taking the new job which had come at just at the right time in his career. He was astonished at the depth of the West Coast operation of Bonhams in particular which worked out of a big block just outside the San Francisco CBD.
He was planning to return to Australia to take the next art sale in Melbourne in May. Bonhams is expected to continue to auction jewellery in its current Paddington rooms where it has also set up a gallery space.
The multi-million dollar merger and rehousing of the Mossgreen and Charles Leski operations in the former Sotheby's Australia ex-theatre building in Armadale's High Street and Sotheby's Australia's purchase of new premises in Melbourne and Sydney together with Lawson's purchase and revamp of a building in Sydney's Leichhardt have freed the respective auction houses from much of the tyranny of rent payments.
They also provide an entree to the property market which is commonly regarded as the safest and most reliable investment avenue in Australia.
Leonard Joels meanwhile, has opened new premises in Sydney in Queen Street but without Ms Anne Phillips in charge. This follows a decision by Ms Phillips, formerly with the much missed Bay East Auctions in Sydney, not to take up a position with the Melbourne-based company on lifestyle grounds. But she hopes to continue to be associated with the industry at lower throttle.
The managing director of Leonard Joel said that the company had advertised for a replacement but had a Melbourne staffer, Mr John D'Agata, commute to front at the office four days a week.
Disappointed to lose Ms Phillips, the ideal candidate for Joels' interstate penetration, he expected that her decision meant Leonard Joel would be concentrating more heavily still on jewellery for which it had found Sydney a most promising source.
While the big auction houses are in a hush hush pitch for a big art collection said to be in the sale offing, the first sleeper of the year was spotted at the Leonard Joel regular weekly sale of Antiques and Interiors on February 6.
This was a 19th century mantel clock by the London firm of Barraud & Lunds which made $3,100 including premium against an estimate of $600 to $700. It had kangaroo and emu decoration in the metal mounts and its reception suggested Australiana was not as dead in the market as may have been thought.
