Hi Giovanni,
You're welcome.
I have the feeling that some collectors, collected Chinese arts in the past or concurrently, or would like to collect Chinese arts. But, due to budget (monetary, space/display, knowledge etc....), they might decided to either start here, or shift to here (i.e. moving from a large ranch in Texas to a small apartment in Tokyo!) due to conditions beyond their control, etc...
If I ever start to buy again and decided to give auctions a try, then I would like to know the different types of my competitors and if possible avoid competing with the above kind. So, if I start with an area that they find boring, then I don't have to worry (as much) about competing with people who are used to upping bids by the 10,000s...
If I can identify these kind of bidders are interested in something I am interested, then I can save my budget and time on research to a different bottle and let them bid each other out. I think a good strategy for my budget is to rank the lots in a sale, to different categories, then understand the competitors, and then figure out which category within this I should focus on. There can also be other areas to consider, like timing my bids only in mid auction house, when everyone is looking at a Big 3 auction, or buy a category that did poorly in a big 3 sales, etc...
It is kind of like strategizing a mock conflict, but with armies/supplies/events replaced by auction related equivalents.
There is a book "Art of War by Sun-Tze" that is written/interpreted by a lot of scholars that I loved when I was a kid, and we learned how to think of 10-20 scenarios for each sentence and to "mock" apply them. But, I already forgot most of them already
.
That group you mentioned is the one I want to avoid the most, some of them have very deep pockets and if they like something it is bad for the real collectors.
Thank you, I do see your point. It will be hard to identify an area to avoid this kind of opponent.
Kind Regards,
David
