How we calculate auction price statistics

Every number on an OpeningBid price page is produced by the rules below. If a figure looks wrong against this page, it is a bug and we want to hear about it.

Scale

15,390,829 auction lots from 577 auction houses, weighted 2001–present. 150,993 artists have a price page.

Price basis

Prices are premium-inclusive USD — the hammer price plus the buyer's premium, as the buyer actually paid — wherever that is the recorded amount. Where a house publishes only a hammer price, that price is used, converted to USD at the sale month, and marked † (buyer's premium not included). Where a house's price basis is not yet verified, figures are marked ‡. The same markers appear in the legends under every table on the artist pages.

Currency

Non-USD results are converted at the monthly FX rate for the sale date, not today's rate, so a 2009 result stays worth what it was worth in 2009.

Medians and records

Computed from sold lots only. Bought-in and withdrawn lots are excluded from price statistics, but they do count against the sell-through rate.

Emission thresholds

A category or size cell is published only with at least 5 sold lots; an artist page needs at least 10. Thinner cells are withheld rather than shown noisy.

Size buckets

On the longest edge of the work: small under 50 cm, medium 50–120 cm, large over 120 cm. Works without reliable dimensions are omitted from size tables, never guessed into a bucket.

Masterpieces

A Masterpieces overlay collects an artist's top of market — the top 5% of their results or $100,000, whichever is lower. It overlaps the category rows by design; it is a lens, not a seventh category.

Money-sanity gate

Prices failing basic unit-sanity checks are excluded and queued for repair, so a mis-parsed currency or a constant-price scraping artifact cannot move a median.

Freshness

Statistics refresh nightly. Every page carries its own “Data last updated” stamp; this page was built 2026-11-02.

Citing this data

Cite this page as: OpeningBid, “How OpeningBid calculates auction price statistics”, https://www.openingbid.art/methodology/price-data (accessed 2026-11-02).

Limitations

Auction results are one signal of value, not an appraisal. Condition, provenance, attribution and private-sale prices are not captured here. This data is not investment advice.