Here's a guessing estimate of what the auction house will get from the commissions from the sale of items + the commission charged to the seller:
214,012.50 Euros if they receive 25% commission from every item sold to the buyers. (I'm not sure if a portion of that % is paid to VAT tax to the German Government and the auction house receives less than 25% for the sold lots, or if the VAT tax is added on top of this 25% commission charged to the buyer.)
It's hard to know for certain how much Hermann Historica charges the seller for a sale with this large of value. I would think from experience that it is a minimum of 18%. Maybe 20%, I do not know for certain, I am only guessing. And then there might be advertising/promotional fees which the auction house will charge on top of what ever flat percentage rate they charge the seller, in order to promote the auction. This would be added on top of this percentage. In the U.S. a typical auction house will also charge advertising/promotional fee on top of the flat commission % rate they charge for selling a collection. It all varies by the value/size of the sale, and varies from auction house to auction house. Some charge as much as 24 or 25% to the seller, in the U.S. to sell items on auction. The advertising fees/promotional fees could easily add up to many thousands of Euros more. I don't know if European auction houses charge the sellers an advertising/promotion fees as a separate expense like they typically do in the the U.S. If they traveled to pick up the collection, my guess would be that they charge the seller for that as well. Lots of expenses involved in any auction of this size. A speculative example might be that if it cost this auction house more to print and mail the auction catalogs than what they sold and shipped the catalogs for as a cost for each one. I do not know if that is true, it is only a speculative scenario. If it would be true, the auction house would pass that extra cost that was not covered by the printing cost of the catalog, and pass that on to the seller as an expense for promoting the sale. That would be typical as an expense an auction house would pass on to the seller, in the advertising/promotional area. I'm not sure if that will be the case with this auction or not, it is only speculation as an example of what typical expenses are that are charged to a seller on top of the flat % fee to sell the items. I remember that the late Ron Manion told me when I worked for his auction house years ago, that the subscription cost for the catalogs did not cover the price it cost to print them and mail them.
128,407 Euros if they charge the seller only 15% fee to sell the collection.
154,089 Euros if they charge the seller 18% fee to sell the collection.
171,210 Euros if they charge the seller 20% fee to sell the collection.
Maybe they charge 22%, or 24%? I honestly do not know without asking the auction house. I would be very surprised if they charge the seller less than 18%. I know some auction houses here in the U.S. will only charge a seller 15% if you have a certain value amount to sell that meets what ever threshold they have established for a lower, 15% commission fee to the seller.
So, adding the 25% commission from the buyers plus a % fee to the seller, the auction house takes in 342,420 Euros at 15% fee to seller, or 368,101.50 Euros at 18% fee to seller, to maybe 385,222.50 Euros at 20% fee to seller. Those would be my guesses, unless some of that goes to VAT tax
That's a large sum of money generated from the sale of an 856,000 Euros auction collection.
It sort of makes my mind spin to think about it... I'm in the wrong business!
Yes, I realize the auction house has a huge amount of expenses for staff, photographers, building overhead expenses, storage, and other items associated with running a business of this type.
