What Is Normal Practice For Reopening Lots In A Live Auction?

I was participating through SAN on an auction when the bid buttons momentarily froze, although my internet connection was still active since I could see the bidding updates. I immediately messaged the auctioneer requesting the lot be reopened. The freeze up was only a short instant since I ended up winning the next lot. The auctioneer refused although previously he had reopened lots at the request of other bidders in the same auction.

I have inquired further with the auction firm as to why lots were reopened for some bidders but not for me, but have received no response. I was curious what others' experiences have been or what normal practice is in this regard. Is it uncommon to reopen lots while the auction is still live - is that considered unfair to the initial winner of the lot? Does it depend on the reason for the request? Or it this another case of the insiders or better customers getting preferential treatment at the whim of the auction firm?

Generally, once the auctioneer opens bidding on the subsequent lot it is too late to reopen bidding on a lot. However, if the lot was passed or sold to the book, the auctioneer can typically reopen bidding. It can also depend on the house, how quickly they see the request to reopen, etc. etc. The house has no incentive to cut-off bidding to benefit better customers or insiders because they receive lower commissions (both buyer and seller) from a lower hammer price.

My musing about whether the house was favoring better customers was referring to the fact that the auctioneer honored other bidders' requests to reopen lots, but not mine. Didn't occur to me that he might be benefiting the person who won the lot I was trying to bid on.

As a legal principle, once the auctioneer has proclaimed the lot "sold", he cannot reopen it as it now is owned by the bidder who bought it. However, in practice, if it was sold to the book, most will reopen the lot for further bidding.

I've seen bidding restarted, but never after an auctioneer proclaimed SOLD.

I have seen it restarted after "sold" but before opening the next lot - I have also seen auctioneers announce at the start of the sale that they reserve the right to reopen for late internet bids

I think the answer is "There are no rules". I think I've told this story before but I'll tell it again.

A few years ago I wanted to bid in an auction but was driving from Fl to NY when the auction was taking place so I put in 10 bids with a limit of $2000. When I got to the hotel I checked and based on closing prices I had won several lots, however when I checked my account I hadn't won any! I called the auction house and they said they'd check into it. They called back and said the auctioneer had misread my limit as $200 and since all my bids were higher than that he had thrown all my bids out. However they could reconstruct the bidding and decided to sell me 3 lots that hadn't left the building yet. This was after the winning bids had been posted to their web site, perhaps these lots were actually unsold but I was never sure. I know I would have been very annoyed if they had posted me as the winning bidder and hours later changed their minds.

I bid exclusively online at major auctions. In my experience, most auction houses will routinely reopen lots for floor bidders, especially well-known bidders, less frequently for phone bidders, and almost never for online bidders... unless there were technological problems at their end.

The guy running the internet bidding in the floor may not see your message requesting a reopen as he is quite busy keeping the internet updated on the floor bidding and letting the auctioneer know when an internet bid is received.

The correct answer is in the first posting here ---Yes ,it is for insiders and better customers and yes it is on the whim of the auctioneer . The MOST common practice and reason it is done is for the agents who are handling a book of customers bids .

Eyeonwall - thanks for the comment - its entirely possible that in some cases the messages aren't being noticed. In this case, however, the bidding process stopped for a few moments and the auctioneer then stated that they wouldn't be reopening the lot before moving on. This was pursuant to the audio feature on SAN that allows you to hear the auction proceedings. I couldn't catch the entire conversation between the auctioneer and the internet guy reading the messages so there may have been some discussion as to why the lot was not going to be reopened that didn't come through clearly on the audio. But they did get the message quickly and made the decision to let matters stay where they were. I don't know why they reopened other lots and refused this one, so it may have come down to the difference between lots that went to the book versus lots that were sold, as someone else suggested.