The Collectible Car Boom 🏎

Online auctions are fueling the collectible car boom, SpiceDAO's misguided Dune purchase

Cultured is a newsletter by Otis that gets readers up to speed on the most interesting things going on at the intersection of finance, art, collectibles, NFTs, and more.

---

🗞 STORIES OF THE DAY

Collectible car auctions have moved online, and they’re booming as a result

• Bring a Trailer, an online auction site for collectible cars, brought in $800 million in sales last year, more than double the previous year. The top price for vehicles on the platform also shot up, from the tens of thousands to several million dollars.

• While the biggest sales are still conducted privately and in-person auctions are heating up again, the biggest growth is in online auctions. New entrants like BaT and Bonhams, which is launching a car auction site next week, are pushing the market to new heights.

• Covid boosted online auctions, but also changed what buyers were looking for. While car collectors traditionally gravitate to classic vehicles, a “freedom narrative” of country driving is pushing online buyers toward newer trucks and all-wheel drive vehicles.

Our Take: The booming online car auction market shows that collectors are increasingly comfortable buying big-dollar items online.

Buying a coin online is one thing — you really only need a description and some photos. Buying a car is a whole different ball game. Collectors need to know that the vehicles are in good shape, something you can’t always tell from photos. Bring a Trailer has been so successful because customers trust them to vet vehicles and, in the case of high-value sales, perform inspections.

---

A DAO bought an original copy of Dune for all the wrong reasons

• SpiceDAO, a decentralized autonomous organization, shelled out $3 million for an original copy of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s (failed) screenplay adaptation of Dune. They want to burn the book and create NFTs of the pages.

• The group posted on Twitter that they planned to publish the book online and generate income by creating an animated series based on Jodorowsky’s screenplay.

• The problem: it’s already available for free online, and buying the book doesn’t give SpiceDAO rights to adapt the series.

Our Take: SpiceDAO’s $3 million gaffe is a good reminder that crypto logic doesn’t always apply in the physical world.

Owners of crypto assets are free to do what they want with their purchases. The legal world doesn’t quite operate on those rules—buying a collectible doesn’t mean you buy the intellectual property rights associated with that product. As one Twitter replier noted, buying a Spider-Man comic doesn’t give you the right to make a Spider-Man film. SpiceDAO can try to use the logic of the crypto world on their purchase, but they’ll likely just be courting a lawsuit. 

This photo of the book’s cover is worth at least $10,000. Feel free to Venmo me at your earliest convenience.

---

✨ AROUND THE INTERNET

• André Leon Talley, a stalwart of the fashion world, passed away earlier this week. One of the only Black editors at Vogue, Talley was known for his larger-than-life presence and outsized influence on the industry.

• Walmart may be getting into the metaverse (and no, it’s not that horrible video that was circulating a few weeks ago). The retail giant filed patents that mentioned selling virtual goods, creating a cryptocurrency, and offering NFTs.

• A Banksy that was supposed to be a gift to a small English seaside town has been sold to a private buyer. Pretty bleak.

• Wikipedia has weighed in on NFTs and you might not like the results. The editors of the online encyclopedia voted against classifying the tokens as art.

• We just got our first look at the 2022 Topps Museum Collection and it doesn’t disappoint. The box is full of fantastic collectibles, including several relic and signature cards.

• Simu Liu, the star of Shang-Chi, apparently begged the film’s production team to let him keep the rare Air Jordan 4s he wore on set.

My PRECIOUS!