Introducing our 18th October auction sale
Welcome to this huge one day auction where we will offer over 400 lots in one day. The decision to keep the sale to a one day auction has been taken specifically to enable bidders who may wish to purchase multiple lots whilst actually attending the auction can do so in one day rather than having to return to our sale over a two day period. We know that a number of lots will be dealt with prior to the auction and so it is likely that the total number of lots offered on the day will be quite a bit lower than 400.
We have divided the day into two sessions, the morning session commencing with Lot 1 with auctioneers announcements at 9:00am and the first lot to be offered at 9:15 am. The afternoon session will be from 1:30 pm onwards and Lot 200 will not be offered prior to that time. This will enable bidders attending the sale to schedule the most appropriate time for them to arrive.
Some may be tempted to conduct a sale such as this in an online environment only as many auctioneers now do, but I firmly disagree with this approach. Since the relaxation of Covid restrictions, we have been conducting in-room venue-based auctions while allowing our customers the choice of whether to bid at the venue, online, by telephone or via a proxy bid. Whilst some auctioneers have publicly said this “doesn’t work“ our evidence is to the contrary and quite simply, over this post Covid period we have had literally 1,000’s of bidders across these auctions choosing to attend the sale and bid in person, so, whatever one might believe or be lead to believe, in an industry that provides a service, I will always listen to our customers rather than commentators or those that may choose to save money by continuing to run E-bay style sales with no real interaction with their customers and buyers. And, as a final point to this, as the only national auctioneers offering this platform to access the auction, the evidence we have is that the vast majority of our actual winning bidders in our sales are those who have attended the sale and experienced the auction first hand.
The other unique feature is our continued production of a printed auction catalogue. This is a huge sale and I know so many active buyers like to read a physical catalogue so you can page through, turn down corners, add post-it notes and make notes on any of the lots you may be interested in. The catalogue is also available as a PDF document on this website and so however you view the catalogue, whether in print or online, I hope you enjoy reading it and given the volume of lots on offer, I am convinced you will find lots of interest and some fantastic deals for you to bid for.
My teams both here at Barnard Marcus and our regional auction centres are here on standby ready to take your calls and emails, so, any questions you have in the lead up to the sale, please get in contact and we’ll come straight back to you.
Whilst I always recommend you attend the sale, if you can’t and want to bid online or via telephone please crack on with your bidder registration as soon as you can. The law requires us to verify the ID of bidders before we can allow you to participate in the auction so whilst I appreciate this can be a bit of a tedious process I can assure you we have made it as easy as possible and this is not our “red tape”, it is a legal requirement to which we are obligated to comply.
I hope you will decide to attend the sale and bid in person rather than entrusting your bid to a broadband or phone link, we look forward to welcoming you to The Grand Connaught Rooms on Wednesday 18th October and wish you the best of luck with your bidding.
