Sell the toilet while gold's hot

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Today, we dive into the sale of the famous gold toilet and its weight in gold.

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The take: Sotheby's is auctioning Cattelan's gold toilet while gold prices rip.

What happened: Sotheby's announced that it will auction Maurizio Cattelan's 18-karat solid gold toilet on 18 November with a starting bid set by the commodity value of its 101.2kg of gold.

Why it matters: Gold hit record demand of 1,313 tonnes in Q3 2025, while prices averaged $3,456 per ounce, up 40% year-on-year. The seller and auction house are timing the sale during strong market conditions.

What to watch: Whether the final hammer price exceeds Cattelan's $17.2M auction record set by his Hitler sculpture in 2016, or if commodity value creates a ceiling.

[Analysis] Mining.com — Spot gold up 50% year-to-date after hitting $4,381/oz on 20 October.

The Guggenheim once called it "unprecedented intimacy with a work of art." Your broker calls it a hedge.

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Timing matters, and Sotheby's picked theirs well.

On 31 October, the auction house announced "America" would hit the block on 18 November, while gold demand reached a quarterly record of 1,313 tonnes and prices hovered near all-time highs.

The 101.2-kilogram toilet's starting bid tracks the spot price of gold, currently around $10 million.

Commodity pricing, plain and simple.

Buyers who want Cattelan's provocation are bidding against investors who see 220 pounds of 18-karat gold at peak prices.

Art transcending value?

Sellers are capitalizing on strong market conditions to maximize their returns.

The 2019 Blenheim Palace thieves who melted the first edition understood the commodity play before Sotheby's formalized it.

Sell while gold's hot, whether you're an auction house or a bloke with a sledgehammer.

Pro: Pricing by material weight honours the sculpture's conceptual challenge and makes valuation transparent.

Con: Reducing Cattelan's work to bullion value undermines the artistic concept and turns a museum piece into a commodity bet.

Our read: The auction house is using record gold prices to inflate the starting bid. They're calling it conceptual art. The starting bid tracks spot gold at $10 million. That's commodity pricing with an art label attached. Sotheby's times the sale while gold's at peak prices, and buyers bid against both art collectors and metal investors.

World Gold Council: Gold Demand Trends Q3 2025

Shows total supply hit a quarterly record of 1,313 tonnes.

Investment demand drove a 44% value increase to $146 billion, proving that the seller is listing during the peak market window, not an artistic whim.

"Gold up 50% in 2025. Art follows metal." — LBMA Gold Price Data

• CNN: Cattelan's Gold Toilet Returns — Why: Details the 2019 Blenheim Palace heist; thieves likely melted £4.8M toilet for bullion value—same math Sotheby's is using now.

• The Art Newspaper: America at Auction — Why: Explains this is the only surviving edition after theft; scarcity meets peak gold prices in a perfect storm.

• Smithsonian: Fully Functioning Gold Toilet — Why: Contrasts "Comedian" banana ($6.2M, no intrinsic value) with "America" ($10M+ in gold alone); shows Cattelan playing both sides of the art market.

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