This posting became much longer than I expected when I started it. To make it more readable I’ve split it into two parts. Part One covers things up to the actual auction day. This, being Part Two, covers the auction and how to pay for your winnings.
Bidding at an auction
Come the day of the auction, if you’ve found something you’re interested in, the excitement begins to mount. You’ve usually got a few options on how to bid. Remember, don’t be shy to take these up. The auction houses want you to bid. If no one did, they’d be out of business.
Everyone has their own way of deciding what they will bid on and how much they will bid. It’s up to you but if you’re new to this I’d suggest write your limit down and stick to it. In general it’s better to lose an item to someone else than overpay. If you write your limit down but tell yourself you’ll bid a bit more if needed, then write down the number including the bit extra. Basically, don’t write down what you want to get something for, write down your limit!
As mentioned in Part One of this guide, items with a a pre-sale estimate will probably have a reserve price on them. This is the lowest price the auctioneer will sell the item at. If no one bids on an item the auctioneer will usually offer a bid price below the estimate to try to encourage potential bidders to start bidding. If the bidding stops below the reserve price the item will be “passed”, i.e. it will be unsold. Now this can be frustrating if you’ve got the highest bid but with no one to bid against the item is passed. In this scenario, you can ask the auctioneer after the auction if they will accept a higher amount from you. They will usually say yes, as it’s in everyone’s interest to sell every item. This is also true for any item that goes through unsold without a bid. If you’re interested, ask. The worst that can happen is you’re told no thanks.
In-room bidding
The traditional and, in my opinion, much the best fun way to bid is to be there in the room. To do this you will have to pre-register. This means giving the auction house your contact details and in return you’ll get a paddle, which is usually just a piece of paper with your bidding number. That’s what you wave when you want to bid and that’s how the auctioneer identifies you. Different auction houses have different arrangements for registering, but be careful, it’s usual that once the auction starts registeration closes. This is is a practicality thing. Once the auction is running, the staff are very busy with taking money and sending people off with their lots.
If you’ve not bid before, you’re probably worried about the old joke that you only scratched your head and ended up having to take home a Ming Vase. In reality, that’s not going to happen. Firstly auctioneers
Having said that, in busy auctions, auctioneers have a really hard time seeing bidders so don’t fidgit if you can help it and make sure you’re standing or sat where the auctioneer can see you clearly when you want to bid. Some auction rooms are big. Fieldings at Stourbridge have a large industrial type unit and people try to bid from the back. It’s really unfair on the auctioneers – and they always ask people to come down to the seats at the front for bidding but some people won’t be told.
If you do want to scratch your head, wait until between lots and look down at the floor whilst you do so!
want to see your bidder number when you first bid on an item or at least a very vigourous wave of your hand. Once you’re bidding on an item then a clear nod of your head is usually sufficient although in the excitment of the moment I’m usually waving my arms as well.
Finally a note of etiquette. If someone else is in the room bidding against you try to ignore them and concentrate on the auctioneer. You should get a told off by the auctioneer if they see you repeatedly looking at your opponent. This is to avoid intimidation of bidders. I’ve only seen it once, when Malcolm Fisher at Malhams in Cheltenham (a charming bloke and one of my favorite auctioneers) gave someone a very sharp rebuke for repeatedly staring at an opposing bidder.
Absentee bidding
If you can’t be at the auction you can leave an Absentee Bid, that being a maximum bid for an item, like an Ebay autobid. Auction houses really like these as it gives them a starting point and assuming your bid is realistic, the guarantee of a sale. I have to say I’m not a big fan of bidding this way. You’re a little bit at the mercy of the auctioneer, although I have to say they try to be scrupulously fair.
The issue with an Absentee Bid is best seen with an example: if you leave a maximum bid of £100 on an item and someone else leaves a maximum bid of £60, then assuming £10 increments, the auctioneer should open with a bid from you at £70. If no one else bids then you win, brilliant. However if there are room bids then next bid would be £80, you would automatically bid £90 but if someone then bids £100 who wins? That’s down to the auctioneer but the precidence is usually given to the room bid. To be fair, they usually comment on being relieved if someone else bids £110 as that removes any doubt.
Telephone bidding
Most auction houses allow telephone bidding, especially for high value items. This is a bit old fashioned now for most things and goes back to the pre-Internet age but it remains popular at high end auctions. If there is an estimate below £100 for an item you may not be offered the option of a telephone bid. In essence, you can expect to be called by the auction house just before the lot comes up and when all other forms of bidding have finished, you get to bid against the remaining bidder. Telephone bidding is slow and I’m quite surprised it continues on lower value items with the Internet options available today.
Internet auction bidding platforms
The effect of the Internet on the world of auctions is worthy of a blog posting all on its own, if not a small book. Whatever else it has done, the Internet was probably the saviour of much of the antiques business through the COVID-19 pandemic of 2019 onwards. Prior to that, many auction houses had started to use online bidding, but through it all most of the remainder came onboard as well.
Whilst some UK auction houses have their own bidding platforms, most use one of the four auction platforms listed here:
- thesaleroom.com
- easylive.com
- invaluable.com
- liveauctioneers.com
These are great places to find auctions coming up, especially for finding auctions near to you. The quantity and range of stuff being sold every week is just amazing.
To bid online simply follow the instructions from the auction house’s web site. In general you’ll find between one and four online bidding platforms to choose from. If there’s only one, it will almost always be either thesaleroom or easylive.
In addition, many auction houses are now have their own platforms as well. More on this some other time, but basically they outsource the work to a third party who adds the auction house’s own branding. If this is available, it is usually the cheapest option. The downside is that you have to register with every auction house you want to bid with.
Getting registered to bid, especially for the first time on a platform, takes a little while so don’t wait until the auction is almost at the lot you’re interested in before starting the registration process. If you’ve used a platform before and have been a successful bidder registration is much quicker (certainly on Easylive). An additional benefit of online bidding is that you can register after the auction has started.
Auction houses will generally provide at least an audio feed and often a video feed as well, so along with the actual online bidding you can follow the auction almost as if you’re in the room. You can almost always watch auctions as a non-bidding guest. This is a good thing to do before you bid for the first time as you can get used to the way a particular auction house or auctioneer operates. Something that’s been very noticeable is how much better auction houses have become are providing the Internet feed. It is now rare for there to be connection issues but don’t worry if there are. Auctions now generally stop if their Internet connection goes down and they restart only when the connection comes back so, as an Internet bidder, you shouldn’t miss out.
Few auction houses use as many as four bidding platforms and in truth I don’t know why any would use more than the most commonly used two. It takes considerable additional skill for an auctioneer and their team to manage multiple Internet platforms as well as room bids.
TheSaleroom was the most commonly used platform until recent times and is still probably the most widely known, but the cost to the buyer has increased. Along with many bidders, I have switched to using Easylive. At present Easylive offers either a free registration with a 3% surcharge on the hammer price if you win or a £3 charge for unlimited bids in one auction. So, if I’m hoping to spend more than £300 in one auction then the £3 fixed fee makes the most sense. If I’m only after a small number of low value lots, then the free registration and 3% on the hammer is better. Listening in to auctions in 2022, I reckon at present Easylive is taking the largest number of bids so I don’t think my choice is unusual.
Do be careful though and check the costs when you sign up to bid as they can change at any time.
Don’t miss your moment!
If you’re only interested in one or two lots, make a note of when the auction starts – especially for multi-day auctions find out where the auction will break for the later days. This is decided beforehand, not on how far the auctioneer has got by a certain time. If things go slowly, auctioneers put in a lot of overtime! There was a time when auction houses could manage 100 lots an hour. Just think about that. You could watch multi-thousand pound lots sold in about 30 to 40 seconds, it’s jaw dropping when you first see it. Today, with auctioneers juggling multiple online platforms 80 lots an hour is about as fast as it gets and 60 is often more realistic. However, as always, it depends on the auction house, the auctioneer and the items being sold (high value items take longer as there is usually more competition) so ask at the viewing what is expected. Again though beware the rate isn’t fixed. You can get some groups of lots can fly through if not many people are bidding. Also, most auction houses have more than one auctioneer and a change of auctioneer can make a huge difference. Some of the more experienced auctioneers can do 20 to 30 lots a hour faster than their less experienced colleagues.
One huge plus where an Internet bidding platform is available is that if you’re planning on either logging on to bid or attending part way through the day you can watch the auction as a guest to monitor progress.
Remember though, if you’re planning on attending in person for a lot 300 from the start, don’t turn up part way through the auction expecting to bid if you haven’t already registered. Almost always, registration must be done before the auction starts for in-person bidding.
Collecting and paying for your lots
So you’ve bid in some way or other and have come out as the winner. Yay! Now you have to pay for and collect your lots. Again, traditional in-house bidding is much the easiest. Every so often, you will usually see the auctioneer hand a sheet of paper to an assistant who takes it to the payment office. That paper has the latest set of lots and the winning buyer numbers on them. The payments office will use that to confirm you’re the winning bidder.
After the last lot that you’ll bid on has gone under the hammer, watch for the winning bids sheet go from the auctioneer to the payments office and that’s the point when you can pay up and a porter will bring your lots to you.
For any other form of bidding you’ll usually have to wait for an invoice. These are usually emailed to you either at the end of the day or early on the next working day. If you bid online, you usually only pay the bidding platform their fees. You pay the auction house their money directly either in person or by bank transfer.
Any form of remote bidding will require either the collection or posting of any items you win. This is a minefield. If you’re new to bidding, I would really suggest you start with auctions you can visit for collection. Auction houses want items collecting as soon as possible after the auction and certainly within a week. Any more delay and you will probably be charged storage. This isn’t them being mean. Consider the amount of stuff they have for one auction – that needs removing before the next auction lots can come in. For the details talk to the auction house as they all have their own way of working, but don’t worry – they should make it as smooth as possible.
Where things can get difficult is when you want an item sending to you. Think about that £10,000 vase you saw and liked. How would you pack that and send it to the other end of the country or half way across the world? Packing, tracking and insurance all cost – sometimes quite a lot. Most auction houses outsource some of this. If you’ve bought a paperweight then postage is probably not a big issue although the charges can be painful even for small items. If, as I did, you buy a 1.5m high, Chinese, carved wooden lamp in the shape of a dragon (it’s gorgeous, I’ll write about it sometime) and it needs transporting 300 miles, you might find the post and packing costs more than the item. Very fragile items such as ceramics, glass or paintings require specialist carriers so again this will add significantly to the cost.
Finally, how much do you pay? Well that again depends but it’s sure to be quite a bit more than the price called when the auctioneer’s hammer comes down. If you’ve only every watched “Bargain Hunt”, this is going to come as a shock. Bargain Hunt is television, sometimes very good television, but it’s not the real world and they ignore the additional costs in the scoring.
Lets start with a hammer price of £100. Items sold at auction should be second hand so there is no VAT (sales tax) to pay on that.
The auction house will now add a Buyer’s Premium. This varies but lets say 21% as a typical value, although smaller auction houses tend not to be so expensive.
Buyer’s Premium is classed as a “new” service so it is liable to VAT, currently 20% in the UK, so in my example the buyer’s premium becomes 21% plus VAT, i.e. 25.2%. That’s right, between the auction house and HMRC we’ve added a quarter to the hammer price so you’re now paying £125.20.
If you bid online through a third party platform there may be additional costs. At present thesaleroom will add 4.95% plus 20% VAT, that’s just about 6% of the hammer price. As mentioned earlier, EasyLive offers a lower rate and many auction houses offer online bidding for free. These amounts might not sound much on a £100 purchase but when you get to bidding £1000, you’re adding £250 for the auction house and maybe £60 to the bidding platform so it can get unexpectedly expensive very quickly.
If you collect your item in person then that’s it. As discussed above, if it needs posting then that will be an another cost. So in summary your costs will be:
- Hammer price
- Hammer price * Buuer’s Premium + VAT
- Internet platform fee + VAT (if used)
- Post and Packing (if required)
There is one other potential charge which is only applied to work by living artists where the hammer price is above the equivalent of 1000 Euros. It’s a sliding scale but for the first 50,000 Euros it is 4% of the hammer price. This is collected by the auction house. If you’re interested, have a read of Artists Resale Rights. The details are usually on an auction house’s web site.
