The shoulder-bumping queue for the 11 a.m. VIP entry for the 42nd edition of Art Basel, the preeminent granddaddy of international art fairs, was claustrophobically reminiscent of the circa 2007 boom days when art-market money was flush and flowing. At least it seemed that way as expectant collectors tried to get past the uniformed Swiss guards who insisted that each person swipe their card through an electronic gateway, making entry as slow as the lines for bratwurst sandwiches in the fair's oasis-like courtyard.

This year, more than 300 galleries from 35 countries plied their modern and contemporary wares, brutally culled from a roster of some 1,000 applicants. Though getting a booth is not as tough as gaining entry to an Ivy League school, the gallerists who made the cut this round stand agood chance of making serious money, even at their retail-plus asking prices, thanks to rising demand.

"It's harder for the dealers to find great works that don't have auction history," said New York private dealer Jim Jacobs, "so when you do, you've to ask a high price for it." The auction specter was evident as the top specialists from the big auction houses in New York, London, and Paris prowled the aisles, no doubt checking prices and assessing market mood.

"The fair is very important to balance the power of the auction houses," said Brussels dealer Marc Blondeau, who came back for this edition after a 15-year absence, "and there's a new clientele of buyers who prefer coming to fairs rather than to the galleries."

Blondeausold a Pop Art-ish Jim Shaw action figure titled "Dream Object (I Was in Vegas to Pickup My Stuff)," a 2000 work of mixed media on wood in artist frame, to a European collector for a sum in the region of the $150,000 asking price. "He's the Douanier Rousseau of our time,"Blondeau said of Shaw, referring to the storied French customs agent who painted uncanny Modernist works of wild animals.

The palpable buzz and inadvertent jostling on the main floor, which is dominated by the more established blue-chip dealers, surprised even veteran exhibitor like London's Leslie Waddington of Waddington/Custot. "We've had fantastic interest in things priced over a million dollars," said Waddington, who's participated in the fair"about 38 times" over Art Basel's 42-edition run.

The gallery sold two Josef Albers paintings in the first minutes, including "Study for Homage to the Square: Cool Illumination," a 1964 piece in oil on masonite, for approximately $400,000, and "Variant Adobe: Red Front" from 1947-56 in the same medium for approximately the same price. Waddington also sold Jean Dubuffet's "Personage pour Washington Parade" from 1973, an ebullient 82 ¼-inch-high ebullient sculpture in red, white, and blue polyurethane paint over epoxy resin, for a bit over one million dollars.

He also sold Kenneth Noland's "Bolton Landing No.9," from 1963, an acrylic-on-canvas target painting, though he declined to state a price in consideration of the buyer's desire for privacy, something you frequently hear among the more discreet dealers. "I could have sold it eight or ten times over," said Waddington, employing another familiar phrase in the patois of seasoned dealers in regards to works that fly off the wall.

Speaking of millions, there were some serious numbers floating around on the downstairs floor, filled with dealers who tend to offer secondary-market works. A $60 million price was tagged to Francis Bacon's "Three Studies for the Human Body" from 1970 at London's Marlborough Gallery, while New York and Los Angeles gallery L&M Arts had Willem de Kooning's "Untitled" painting from 1975-77 going for $15 million. Oddly, the majestic de Kooning hung unlit on the wall, and even in the natural light of the large windows that wrap around the exhibition hall, it was hard to see.

"I'm waiting for the electrician," hissed Robert Mnuchin, L&M's usually unflappable co-owner. As if by Mnuchin magic, the moment he said it the overhead spot lights flickered and then stayed on.

So far, there weren't any serious bites for the de Kooning but the gallery quickly sold a small-scaled untitled Mark Rothko paintingfrom 1959 for approximately $5 million to an American collector, according to the gallery's Amy Gold.

Bumping up to eight figures, Pablo Picasso's "Tete de Femme" from 1938 was on offer at Geneva's Galerie Krugier for $12 million, and another Picasso, the mural-scaled "Femme Allongee" from 1946, was priced at $30 million. Both works, which hail from the Picasso estate, have never before been exhibited.

But the big fish, in these Warhol-crazed days, was the Pop master's $80 million billboard-scaled "One Hundred Fifty Black/White/Gray Marilyns" from 1980 at Zürich's Galerie Bruno Bischofberger. Regrettably for Bischofberger, a European client who made a successful offer for the reversal-series Marilyn wound up empty-handed because at the last minute the anonymous consignor declined to part with the painting.  

"The family decided not to sell it," said the gallery's Tobias Mueller. Balky sellers usually aren't a problem, but the current market is rife with fickle attitudes.

"The market is so weird," said London private dealer Wendy Goldsmith, buttonholed in Zürich's Thomas Ammann Fine Art amid its wicked installation of various vintage Warhol boxes. "No one knows what anyone wants or what anything is worth."

But there wasn't much confusion in the silver-wallpapered stand, decorated in homage to Warhol's Factory days. Of the 13 assembled Warhol Campbell Tomato juice cartons from 1964, two had already sold for $1.1 million apiece, according to gallerist Doris Ammann.

The booth was cleverly installed, mimicking in part the original installation of silkscreened and handpainted plywood cartons that debuted in 1964 at the Stable Gallery, just prior to Warhol's move to the Leo Castelli Gallery. At that time the boxes were priced at $300, according to Ammann.

It became relatively clear in the first few hours of the fair that the mood to buy was in full swing despite shaky global financial markets and continued uncertainty about distressed Euro Zone states like Greece. Successes were evident across a healthy slice of exhibitors, including New York's Luhring Augustine, where Albert Oehlen's ghostly abstraction "Sangerin von Urkunden" from 1999 quickly sold to an American collector for $550,000. Rachel Whiteread's "Threshold IV," a 2010 sculpturein blue-tinted resin, also went for $185,000, the same price fetched by Tom Friedman's new untitled 2011 work on offer, which was manically comprised of 700 strands of tightly knitted yarn, each ten feet long. It was the first work the artist made for the gallery since departing Gagosian Gallery.

Luhring Augustine also sold a group Josh Smith works, including a 2011 untitled piece comprised of mixed media on eight panels, all color-infused and patterned works, for $95,000. Sized at 120 by 188 inches, it was a lot of bang for the buck. The gallery had fielded additional interest intheir impressive 1996 Christopher Wool painting "Woman on a Bicycle," possibly titled after the de Kooning painting of the same name and offered at $2.5 million.

Business was also buzzing at Munich's Galerie Thomas, which sold Robert Dealunay's Orphist "Reflied-disques" from 1936, in gouache and sand over pencil and cardboard, to a Swiss collector for €450,000 ($650,000) and Anselm Kiefer's "Sonnenreste (Remains of the Sun)" from 1998, a work of mixed media and photography on paper that was attached to plywood, to another Swiss collector for €295,000 ($425,000).

"It's a very strong opening day," said the gallery's Silke Thomas.

The sweep of commerce also perfumed the air at New York's Acquavella Galleries, where Sigmar Polke's "Untitled (Cycle 1990)" from 1990, in flammable silver nitrate on linen, sold for somewhere near its $1.3 million asking price, and Richard Serra's forged-iron "Consequences of Apples and Oranges" from 1990 at Madrid's Elvira Gonzalez sold to a European collector for a sum in the region of its $2 million asking price.

"I'm amazed at the amount of money being made here today," enthused London-based Fine Art Fund chief executive Philip Hoffman, buttonholed on the escalator up to the second floor expanse of primary-market galleries. "It's a very strong market," enthused the money manager, whose art fund is also profiting at the fair, with a number of works on consignment at several galleries here. According to Hoffman, "We're getting returns of 50 to 80 percent profit from works we bought in 2008, 2009, and even 2010 and that we've consigned here."

The bullishness evident is difficult to analyze at this early stage, but consider that Julian Schnabel's "Untitled (Jill + Sander)" from 1993, a huge 98-by-78-inch work on paper laid down on canvas and set in a gaudy fiberglass frame, sold for €350,000 ($500,000) at Dusseldorf's Galerie Hans Mayer. With Schnabel no longer the art star of the 1980s, the sale tells you something is definitely brewing.

Another indicator of unusual commerce afoot could be found at New York's Per Skarstedt, where Mike Kelley's seven-panel silver gelatin assemblage "The Poltergeist" from 1979 sold to a European collector for $800,000. Writing on the bottom of one of the giant panels stated, "The poltergeist is the dummy of the subconscious." It kind of rang a bell.

"You don't expect to sell such a tough piece at an art fair," said owner Per Skarstedt, who also sold a 1990 Richard Prince joke painting, "Ordered," for $1.3 million to an American collector, as well as George Condo's "Field of Figures" from 2011, in acrylic, charcoal, and pastel on linen, for $450,000.

"If half of what's cooking happens," said Nick Acquavella, alluding to strong interest in works by Philip Guston and James Rosenquist,"it will be a great fair."

The fair officially opens tomorrow and more results are bound to follow.

Correction: ARTINFO previously reported that the sellers of the $80 million Warhol at Bruno Bischofberger's stand had turned down an offer for the painting, preferring to keep it. This was in error. The painting, originally commissioned and still owned by Bischofberger himself, elicited a $70 million offer from a prominent private collector, but when the collector's family came to look at the work at the fair dissension broke out and the offer was retracted.