ALT/FNDATA · Special Report
Category and Price-Band Analysis: The H1 2025 Rotation
The auction market traded down and broadened. Jewelry and watches held their value while fine art and handbags cooled. A read on where demand rotated.
A softening market does not fall evenly. In the first half of 2025 the saleroom traded down and broadened: value slipped across every price band while the lot count rose at the bottom, and demand rotated toward the hard-asset categories. Jewelry and watches held; fine art and handbags cooled.
The headline
The correction in three numbers
+27%
Jewelry & gems value, H1 year over year
The resilient hard asset led the categories that held as the market softened, with watches close behind at +5%.
-33%
Fine art value, H1 year over year
A softer spring season at the biggest category drove the overall decline. Fine art swings on which collections land where.
+18%
Volume in the sub-$10k band
The market broadened: more lots changed hands at the bottom even as value fell across every band.
Where demand rotated as the saleroom softened, read by category and by price band. · 13M+ auction results · 100+ houses.
The read
What the data shows
The softening was a rotation, not an even retreat. Total value across the tracked categories fell about 20 percent year over year, yet the intrinsic, hard-asset categories held: jewelry and gems rose 27 percent and watches added 5 percent, while discretionary fine art drove the headline decline at 33 percent lower. The market also broadened at the base, where the number of lots under $10,000 climbed 18 percent even as their average value slipped. When the saleroom cools, demand moves toward what holds its worth.
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- The full category rotation, what held and what cooled
- The price-band read: how the market traded down and broadened
- Why jewelry and watches held as fine art cooled
- How to read a rotation, and what it signals for the cycle
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