Ethics at the Top Two Auction Houses Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5750 words

Ethics at the Top Two Auction Houses - Essay Example The value for money stretches from a few hundred dollars (e.g., wine) to millions in expensive paintings. (CEC 7) The auction sale of private collections may be held either with a certain motif, under a class of the commodity, or the art's genre or given time period. In 1996, Sotheby's sold at auction the estate of Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis as a collection, while other public dealings were categorized in 'Old Master Paintings' or 'Jewellery'. Sotheby's fiercest competitor, Christie's also hold such glamorous, multi-million-dollar auction events, as the richest of richest of men grace such occasions. (CEC 7) Although both auction houses hold 'regular' auctions at their subsidiaries throughout the world (Rome, Geneva, Zurich, Amsterdam, Milan, Melbourne and Hong Kong), high-profile auction events are generally held at their London and New York headquarters. (Ashenfelter & Graddy 3-25) The auction houses, which accept items to be auctioned (on a consignment basis), handle each necessary arrangement for the event, including planning, design and distribution of high-class brochures, advanced publicity as well as viewing opportunities. To facilitate sales, merchandise are sold individually (called 'lots'), even large collections are separated and auctioned as a single item. As seller of the consignor's items, the auction house manages all the account procedures: bills the buyer, remits the consignor the money after the purchase of the merchandise, minus the commission, taxes and other expenses. The commission is computed within the 'hammer price,' when the item is settled to the winning bidder. Regarded as 'seller's commission' or 'vendor's' commission, a certain percentage is taken from the consignor. The 'buyer's premium,' or a percentage from the hammer price is also charged to the buying public at the auctions (CEC 8). A percentage of the hammer price, called the buyer's premium, is also charged to people making purchases at auctions. This practice was initially introduced in the main auction rooms of these two auctions giants, sometime in 1975-only a few weeks from each other. Both firms made several changes on this practice through the years (independently from each other), but eventually both of their practices became similar. Auctioneering is not the only source of income of these two firms as both are engaged in other commercial activities, such as offering loans against the security of works of art. Nonetheless, the main sources of revenues remain the buyer's premium and vendor's commission. (CEC 8) The turgid exercise of auctioning fine arts produce a discriminating product market effect other than conventional ventures of selling or buying the items that serves the purpose of assessment value, based on the following (CEC 8). Firstly, clients consider the great importance of consigning their items at auctions due to the high standard of publicity for the merchandise. Likewise, consignors achieve the highest possible

Geotechnical Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Geotechnical - Essay Example Geotechnical engineering uses the geophysical methods in measuring the physical properties on the earth sub surface. These methods have the potential of measuring the anomalies in the properties of soil to identify the position and the presence of minerals (Das and Sobhan, 2013). They involve applying physical methods in measuring the physical traits of rocks and soil thus detecting the physical differences between the rocks that have the hydrocarbons or ore deposits. This paper explores the different types of geophysics method and their use in geotechnical engineering. Electromagnetic induction (EM) involves a method that uses the induction principles in measuring the electrical conductivity of the subsurface. Different from the techniques of conventional resistivity, EM requires no contact in the ground. This eliminates the fast problems of electrical coupling allowing much acquisition of rapid data. Since the EM instruments give an easy and rapid collection of data, the instruments are always used as the tools of reconnaissance used in identifying the greatly detailed anomalies (Nobes, 2000). The induced electromagnetic pulse can be measured using the frequency domain meters and time domain meters. GPR (ground penetrating Radar is utilized in pinpointing the buried objects location and mapping and having stratigraphy mapped out. It gives the shallow subsurface cross-sectional measurements. The method has the ability of locating the nonmetal and metal objects. In many cases, data and profiles are recorded and the result is shown using the real time having the attached display unit of the computer. This results into a fast and easy field interpretation. More data interpretation could be done later (Nobes, 2000). The instruments of GPR have energy beamed into the ground from the antenna in the electromagnetic wave form. An energy position is reflected towards the antenna at the specific subsurface