Dear Lee,

Now that it is possible to bid at an online antiques auction twenty-four hours of the day, there are fewer bidders sitting in the room with the auctioneer. If you have never bid in a live gallery auction, you are missing a special experience. It is similar to visiting a gambling casino. You compete for a prize (the antique), place your bet (bid), and hope to win. So try something new. Go to a local auction and watch how it works. Sit where you can see the auctioneer, the bid takers, the bidders and what is going on behind you.

Make sure you can take your purchases home. Will they fit in the car? Is there shipping or storage available? There is usually a storage charge if you don’t take your items in a few days. Other charges added to your bid are buyer’s premium, sales tax, and even a charge for using a credit card. Your “bargain” can cost as much as 30% more. Other tips:

  • Online auctions take planning too. Experts say there is a slight advantage to placing a computer bid instead of a phone bid. Something about the way the computers execute the prices. When there are duplicate bids, the first one recorded is the winner, and the computer is quickest. You can leave an absentee bid. It is entered in correct jumps just like you would, not as one high bid.
  • Don’t be surprised if you read the prices later and you were charged more. The live auction bids recorded online during a sale don’t include any of the added charges. But the auction house listed prices available after the sale usually include buyer’s premium.
  • Most auctions give bidding paddles because a waving paddle can be seen and the buyer identified by the auction staff. Some bidders arrange to give signals to the auctioneer–a pencil tap to the catalog, an arm movement–so that the audience doesn’t know they are bidding. My husband Ralph tried to buy a piece of jewelry for me at one of our first auctions. We sat for hours wondering who was buying most of the jewelry because the auctioneer kept pointing at us. It was the man in front of us. As the necklace we wanted came up, Ralph leaned over and said to the stranger, “Don’t you have to go to the bathroom or something.” The dealer who was bidding was so amused he did leave for a few minutes. Our bid was high, and that necklace has special memories for me.