[aljurgela]

I believe that Bruce's approximation may be a pretty good one, or at least as good as one could get at this point.... and I am not sure how we would use this data, unless I was an auction house trying to invite the "right" people to a closed high end auction...

But I would add one point... I think that the purchasers of high end material (and probably all collectors regardless of level) should be pretty volatile in dollars spent because they tend to look for certain items and when they become available, they pounce on them making sure that they have "dry powder" for the day that they become available... at least that is my take. So my hypothesis is that some people may spend $100k one year, $10k the next, then $50k, then $200k... it really is a funtion of what is available.

If you believe my hypothesis and apply it to Bruce's numbers, then there would likely have to be more collectors. I would guess that there are about 5 collectors who spend $1 million or more a year.... but I am far less experienced in this "industry" than Bruce or others.