i went to sothebys.com and it's the same thing, they sold this group of pearl and diamond jewelery for $8k and it could easily end up costing you this much in a high-brand store

The question is not about the price, but are these things - these specific things - available via retail channels right now?

It's not that auctions specialize in only more valuable things. They really don't, and often auctions result in some astounding bargains. We only hear about the newsmaking sales that surprise us because they went higher than expected.

Their specialty is to present presumably rarer or one-of-a-kind or no-longer-easy-to-get objects, and let the market set the price. That price can be lower, higher, or the same than it may once have cost retail, but because you can no longer buy it retail, the auction is the only purveyor.

yeah I see. Thanks for the info. Yeah I wasn't getting idea but I now understand that like any second hand sale auctioned jewelery is often a bargain. As for whether the item is more or less special or exclusive than retail I guess it's a wash at the higher ranges, there's nothing that takes away your need to actually know what an item is and know if they made 10 of it or 10,000 off a factory line. And in the end exclusivity is just a cultural construct so something that was common but now is hard to find can become special just by virtue of scarcity. So what enthusiastic and financially-able collectors end up doing I guess is going for a mix; some old stuff, some new stuff, some auction stuff, some retail or custom made stuff... or I guess whatever fulfills their personal preferences and quirks.

What Miko said.

Plus, people can get caught up in an auction, bidding to win or bidding obsessively even past whatever limit they came in with. I go to lower end auctions all the time, and for every fabulous deal I see, I also see people who pay more for things than they can buy at retail. People are funny.

Also for non-dealers -- and especially collectors -- paying $50 or $100 less than they would in a retail shop is a bargain. I tend to be super cheap (I have to pay overhead and make a good profit on something that will sell relatively quickly), but others don't have my constraints.