Collector Market Morning Watch: Hershey Sold 99%, but Prices Split, and RM London Resets the Valkyrie

Two sale rooms anchor this morning’s collector car market brief, and they tell collectors the same thing, from opposite directions: sell-through is not a price signal. Hershey cleared 99 percent of its lots last week, yet the results sorted sharply by what a buyer was actually willing to pay for. In London, RM Sotheby’s has set the estimate on a near-delivery-mileage Aston Martin Valkyrie well below where a more elaborately specified car was pitched a year ago. Neither story appeared in our Zoute market brief earlier this week.

Hershey: 99 percent sold, but the estimates sorted the field

RM Sotheby’s reports $13.8 million in sales at its 20th Hershey auction (October 7–8, the official sale of the AACA National Fall Meet), with a 99 percent sell-through rate and bidders from 21 countries. Third-party tallies differ slightly — Classic.com’s running total showed 98 percent and $12.8 million — so treat the headline figures as RM’s own.

The top lot, the 1934 Duesenberg Model J Convertible Berline by Murphy, sold for $1,022,500 against a $900,000–$1.2 million estimate: mid-range, and a clean outcome for a car whose provenance is first-rate and whose engine history is more complicated. RM ranks the 1935 Auburn 851 Supercharged Speedster second, but the materials available at time of writing give no price for it. It carried an $850,000–$950,000 estimate, and our earlier look at its replacement frame is the question to settle before comparing it with anything else.

Where the estimates landed

Below the top lot, the spread is the story. Of the five lots where we have both a published estimate and a result, one beat its high estimate, two landed inside the range and two fell short of the low end:

That last caveat matters. A result at the bottom of an estimate range has already absorbed a premium, so Big Red’s $280,000 is a thinner outcome than it looks. The Eldorado Brougham Town Car is the clear outlier: RM says it surpassed a $400,000 auction result from 2023, which makes it the one top-ten lot where RM cites a prior result to measure against. The 1915 Mercedes is a two-part lot (an original display chassis plus a recreated tourer body), and the 1937 Cord is a supercharged cabriolet in a segment where one result is not enough to call a trend. One sale is not a verdict on prewar. Both results are worth holding up against the next brass-era and Full Classic results.

RM London: the Valkyrie estimate has reset, and the F40 is untested

RM’s London sale at The Peninsula on October 31 now has three headline cars beyond the one-owner Carrera RS 3.8 we covered on Thursday.

The Valkyrie

2023 Aston Martin Valkyrie Coupé, estimate £1.8–2.4 million. One of 150 coupes, with a single owner and 258 km reported, in Zenith White with exposed blue-tinted carbon fibre. The useful comparison is last November at the same venue. A 2024 Valkyrie in a one-of-a-kind “Anemos” configuration (a specification that added £500,000 to its list price) was offered at £2.25–2.75 million and sold for £2,226,875, just under the low estimate. This year’s car is being pitched roughly £450,000 lower at the bottom of the range and £350,000 lower at the top. The market question is whether the Anemos car’s result reflected a tired price for the model or only a discount for a taste-specific build; a plainer, lower-mileage example will answer it.

The F40

1988 Ferrari F40, estimate £1.8–2.4 million. RM describes it as one of the first 50 built, in the earliest specification (no catalytic converter, no adjustable suspension, sliding plexiglass windows), delivered new in Rome. Italian press coverage adds that it was later exported to Japan and fitted with racing-style modifications. Those two facts pull in opposite directions. First-50 specification is the point of the car, while departures from it are what a buyer will price. We did not find a verified recent public result for a comparable early car, so the estimate is effectively untested. Read the catalogue’s modification list closely, and see our note on why F40 engine numbers matter before reading anything into the headline figure.

The 300 SL Roadster

1963 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Roadster, estimate £1.1–1.3 million. Described as the penultimate roadster built, with the light-alloy engine block, disc brakes and fully matching numbers. Two roadsters sold at Zoute last week bracket it: a 1961 car with a frame-off restoration made €1,265,000 at Bonhams on October 11, and a 1957 roadster made €1,041,250 at Broad Arrow on October 9. Currencies, years and specifications differ. The late alloy-block car is the rarer configuration, so these are brackets, not matches. How the room treats the alloy block and disc brakes will show whether late-production specification earns a premium over restoration quality. Our guide to verifying alloy 300 SL components with the data card covers the documentation to ask for.

On the calendar today

Richmond Auctions’ inaugural Fall Spectacular opens today at the Savoy Automobile Museum in Cartersville, Georgia, with a second day on October 17: more than 125 cars, live and online. A full lot list was not posted when we checked; our earlier profile of the Kindig TwelveAir Ridler Ford GT and the Liquid Carbon Edition covers the headline car.

What to watch

Two numbers to carry into the next few sales: how far below the low estimate the supercharged and brass-era prewar cars clear, and whether London’s lower Valkyrie estimate attracts the bidding that last year’s did not. If both hold, the story for fall is selectivity on specification rather than a broad pullback. For the Belgian context, our LaFerrari mileage-discount analysis sets out where the top of the market stood a week ago.

Sources: Old Cars Weekly, RM Sotheby’s Hershey 2026 results; Shop Mag, Hershey pre-sale estimates; Classic.com, Hershey 2026; L’Espresso, RM London consignments; RM Sotheby’s, 2025 London results; RM Sotheby’s, 2025 Valkyrie estimate; Motor Sports NewsWire, Bonhams Zoute; GlobeNewswire, Broad Arrow Zoute; Richmond Auctions, Fall Spectacular.