Online auctions

Surrey auctioneers Ewbank are now offering a live online bidding service and held their first such sale on July 7.

ATG have now updated the search capability of the price guide on www.antiquestradegazette.com, and it is infinitely faster than before.

A New York jury has ruled in a legal case that has locked the horns of the two biggest names in real-time Internet bidding.

OVER the weekend of May 15-16, the Annapolis (Maryland) doll specialists, Theriault’s, sold $3m worth of dolls and automata in a Las Vegas sale that for the first time introduced live Internet bidding.

LIVEAUCTIONEERS.COM, the Manhattan-based company that provides real-time Internet bidding capability to many US auction houses, has signed an agreement with Sotheby’s New York branch to provide its services for selected Sotheby’s sales.

A NEW company aiming to capture a market that even the top firms have failed to corner – selling high end art and antiques online – are trying a fresh approach. iGavel are headed by Vancouver-based Lark E. Mason, Jr, a 24-year veteran employee of Sotheby’s whose last role was director of online auctions for sothebys.com.

THANKS to intense internicine competition between major London dealers such as Richard Green and David Mason in recent years, the once-maligned name of Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-1839) has become a byword for high prices at UK art sales.

Sotheby’s have dramatically scaled back their ambitious but costly Internet operation, announcing an end to all separate online auctions by early May.

For all those fans who ever longed to run their fingers through Elvis Presley’s hair, now there’s a chance. While locks or strands of Elvis’ boot-polished black hair have been sold in the past, one of more than 1400 memorabilia lots in a sale closing on November 14-15 on www.mastronet.com is something just a bit special.

THE influence of eBay in the online antiques trade has increased further with the announcement of an online deal with sothebys.com.

A NEW survey of US auctioneers shows distinct trends developing in online auctions that should help them establish their presence long term as part of the selling process for antiques.

First icollector close their London operation, now sothebys.com consolidate service in New York: Growing acceptance that the US antiques trade and collectors are happier to complete transactions online than their UK counterparts is illustrated by two major moves that have just been announced.

Listed on eBay on October 15 with an opening bid of just $75, within seven days this gold plastic PEZ space gun dating from the late 1950s/early ’60s had attracted a final bid of $6262 (£4540). At today’s prices, that’s more than 22 times the cost of an ounce of real gold.

A DISPUTE over rent and refurbishment could spell the end of ewolfs.com, the Ohio-based online auction house, who have shed 20 of their 24 staff and shut down temporarily in the crisis.

US-based Ableauctions have made an offer to acquire fellow online auctions firm ICollector in a share swap deal that values ICollector at £9.8m ($13.9m).

The growth of the Internet, and the reluctance of the biggest auctioneers to deal with low-value goods, has helped provincial auctioneers win more business.

THE 300-LOT postal and online comic auction which ended on March 13 was a complete sell-out and saw a top bid of £2540 for a copy of the first Beano Book (or annual) of 1940, which had a rather worn spine but was otherwise designated vg.

ICOLLECTOR seem to be on a roll with their new eBay deal. After a good start, they have put in another creditable performance, this time at the recent Dargate Galleries sale of general antiques and collectables, reported in detail below.

ONLY two weeks ago I featured Antique Networking and their plans for the year. What they could not reveal then but have now is their merger with GoAntiques, allowing them to claim the title “largest online antiques business on the Web”.

AS mentioned in recent issues of the Antiques Trade Gazette, some of the dotcom companies blazing the trail last year have gone very quiet in 2001. But that does not mean that all of them have gone under. In fact, in several cases, it is because they have had their heads down while they develop their businesses further and negotiate new funding deals.