My recent return from Arizona and covering parts of the multiple auction marathon that begins about mid-month in January and continues on for more than a week had me pondering the "big picture" on the plane ride home.

As editor of Old Cars Price Guide, I study auction prices realized quite heavily to see what trends are developing as a result of prices paid, not only in Arizona at the beginning of each year, but throughout the year and throughout the country. Arizona is just a logical starting point because the several auctions that take place there are usually the first of the calendar year. For the most part, when researching prices paid to consider any adjustment to the values in OCPG, multiple sales must be considered on the same or similar car. Of those multiple sales studied, the tendency is to throw out the high and low and use the middle ground as the actual. Guess where most of the Arizona results end up in this scenario? They generally show up at the high end, so say good-bye!

I've been pretty much a regular on the Arizona auction scene since 1990. That was the year the old car hobby was already experiencing the hand-wringing of a market correction that saw prices paid for collector vehicles taking a sharp (I'm being conservative in my word choice) downturn. It was a time of frustration for those who bought high, and equally a time of renewed enthusiasm for those now able to buy low(er).

Jump ahead 17 years, and rumblings of a softening of prices paid for collector vehicles are again being heard. Muscle cars are still king, often commanding dollars that defy logic, and Arizona sales bore this out. But what's different in 2007 vs. 1990 is what I'll dub the "TV factor." My best guess is that just as the SPEED television coverage of the Barrett-Jackson sale at the WestWorld facility has brought new eyes and new collectors into the old car hobby each of the past several years (an extremely good thing), it, too, will continue to promote artificially high prices paid for many, if not all, the vehicles that cross the block. If a market correction should occur (or re-occur for those who remember 1990), it may not have much of an impact on this slate of early-year Arizona sales that all benefit from the extensive TV coverage, whether they're held at WestWorld or not. (This is a bad thing if you're a buyer hoping that at some point the "cream" authentic muscle cars that show up in Arizona each year will be able to be had without taking out a loan the size of the national debt to acquire one!)