Healthy market on display again at Sullivan sale
CARTHAGE, Ill. _ Sullivan Auctions, of Hamilton, Ill., is an auction house that specializes in agricultural land and equipment along with estates, yet has also been conducting a summer collector car auction for 16 years. Even with the pandemic last year, it was able to conduct a two-day online-only collector car consignment auction. Sullivan Auctions was back this year, using that same format. With all lots selling in the online-only format, they were also sold at no reserve and no buyer’s fee to boot.
The online-only format has worked well enough, including for the Ralph Bauer estate sale it conducted on Feb. 1, that, even with restrictions easing in rural Illinois, Sullivan Auctions elected to continue this approach for the rest of its collector car consignment auctions this year — including at its traditional summer auction.
Almost all of the consignments were at Sullivan Auctions’ facility in Carthage — only a handful of immobile lots were in a nearby town — so vehicles were available for inspection the week before the auction began closing. Unlike the Bauer estate, there was not a live-online aspect to the auction; it was all timed closing, with no bid calling. Bidding opened exclusively at on July 2 and began closing at 9 a.m. on Monday, July 12. In addition, on Tuesday, more than 400 lots of automobilia that were part of
