About Bruun Rasmussen’s valuations

About valuations

Culture-historical insight and a sound understanding of the arts are only part of the necessary professional ballast. Correct valuation also requires a sure sense of the commercial opportunities available within the highly specialised market for trading in art and antiques. The department for external valuation has been in existence since the house was founded in 1948, and therefore has many years experience valuing art and antiques.

With our 50 experts dealing with the various areas of antiques, paintings, design, books and wine, we at Bruun Rasmussen cover all branches of the arts. Thus the house’s three departments undertake all types of valuation work throughout the country and possess a unique database; we are also able to draw on the country’s largest private professional library built up over the course of half a century.

As a leading auction house, over the years Bruun Rasmussen Auctioneers of Fine Art have built up a comprehensive knowledge of the current relationship between supply and demand. Thus the house possesses a fully updated knowledge of price fluctuations within the market for art.

For instance, how do you value the huge paintings of Paul Gadegaard (1920–1996), which have never been sold before. The be-all and end-all here is knowing the current market value. This is a question of knowing the importance and quality of the work, what this quality or lack of it implies for its value under replacement conditions.

Many hundreds of private valuations each year

Moreover, each year Bruun Rasmussen receives several thousand inquiries from private individuals, lawyers, accountants and insurance companies. Public institutions and museums also have recourse to the house’s expertise. Even in the most modest of homes there are often articles of a quality that only a professional can value. Using the expertise of the auction house ensures against false valuations.

Each year Bruun Rasmussen holds 40 auctions distributed between more than 55,000 lots. Together with their other valuation tasks the auction house’s valuers make at least a quarter of a million valuations every year.

Legislation

Legislation as it applies to the auctioning of goods is one which ensures the correct and impartial sale of art and household effects. In recognition of the auction house’s fundamental neutral and expert knowledge and competences, two years ago the Ministry of Justice enacted the law that authorises the auction house to both value and broker sales.

Valuation of entire estates

Today Bruun Rasmussen Auctioneers of Fine Art also undertakes the winding up of entire estates, including registration and all practical arrangements which are unavoidably bound up with such, thus relieving the heirs of often seemingly insurmountable problems while at the same time ensuring the best possible sale prices.

Lawyers, accountants and insurance companies often come up against major problems when dealing with inheritances, divorces, insurance cases and other matters where household effects and objets d’art must be accounted for with a view to sale.

Often there may be doubts as to a valuation and disagreements may arise between the parties. And in fact this is not so surprising: it takes special knowledge to value household effects in a reasonable manner, and as is the case in all branches, you need the intellectual equipment for the job.

About valuation in the home

At the invitation of the owner – or though lawyers, accountants or insurance companies - Bruun Rasmussen makes well over a thousand valuations in private homes each year, in addition to the constant work of identifying, dating and valuing the many articles which are submitted daily by private individuals who are considering possible sale via Bruun Rasmussen.

Both where submitted items and valuation in private homes are concerned, in principle valuation is free of charge when the owner wishes to sell the relevant items at auction. A minimum price may be agreed upon submission, below which the lot may not be sold. The hammer may only fall on a price equivalent to or in excess of this reserve.

In all cases, the basis of Bruun Rasmussen valuation is the price that might be obtained at auction. The estates of deceased persons are estimated so as to ensure the heirs payment of the amounts the effects are valued at. Actions for damages and insurance valuations are estimated somewhat higher since the claimant is typically forced to make his or her replacement purchases retail.

Fees for valuation without sale

For major valuation assignments that do not result in submissions for sale at auction, Bruun Rasmussen charges a fee for the time consumed. By far the majority of estates can be valued in a couple of hours, and in by far the majority of cases such assignments can be carried out within a prearranged payment framework.

The costs of making use of the auction house’s expertise and ensuring against unpleasant or even liability-incurring erroneous valuations is thus quite modest.