While Southern Africa’s largest auction house can share some interesting stories from its 53-years’ worth of trading, to date, the practice of selling items to the highest bidder has been around for just a tad longer.
Derived from the Latin term for, “I increase”, the concept behind the word auction dates back as far as 500BC. Indeed, by all accounts, the practice of selling “goods” to a highest bidder began with the sale of women to prospective husbands.
While it’s a sad indictment on this industry that many more people would be traded against their will by this method in the centuries to follow, the idea of outbidding a fellow patron to secure an object of desire has at least established a few more palatable anecdotes over the years.
If the Roman Empire broadly adopted this practice to dish out the spoils of war, tales of the bidding process in the 1600s lasting only as long as a wall-mounted candle remained lit surely provides the first recorded occasions of tactics and, indeed, the careful timing of a winning bid coming into play.
The first formal auction house was founded in 1674 in Sweden. Today, the Stockholms Auktionsverk has branches in Gothenberg and Malmö, whilst catering to a vast and established list of clienteles in centres including London, Paris, New York, Brussels, Geneva, Helsinki and Oslo.
Currently the second largest auction house in the world, Sotheby’s, would open its doors in 1744, while the dominant player in the today’s field, Christies, began accepting bids in 1766.
The New York office of Christies holds the title of closing the world’s highest winning bid, to date. In 2017, Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” would fetch $450.3 million.
Somewhat more attainable, the most expensive car to have been “put under the hammer” is a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO. In 2018, this V12-powered, scarlet red steed would sell for $48.4 million.
In a South African context, the artwork of the late Irma Stern continues to cause a stir on auction floors around the world. In 2011 Bonhams of London would accept a final bid of
£3 044 000 (around R62 million) for the Schweizer-Reneke-born artist’s “Arab Priest” work. More recently, a kiss from Benoni-born actress Charlize Theron was auctioned as part of a $140 000 package to raise money for charity…
While the Guinness Book of Records lists the longest bidding auction as having acknowledged over 100 bids while lasting 75-minutes, since the advent of the online auction process in 1995, bargain hunters and collectors alike have enjoyed the convenience of bidding for items without having to set foot on an auction house floor or, indeed, needing to wait their turn as each lot is allocated.
A keen player in this space since 2012, Aucor currently has 74 959 registered users across its online platforms. Via live.aucor.com – and encouraged by the lockdown-enforced circumstances of recent times – the company has seen website pageviews climb to almost 11 million over the past year. Added browsing and, indeed, bidding convenience is available via the brand’s AucorLive interactive App.
In modern terms, whilst it’s unlikely any item will match the prospect of assuming ownership of the Roman Empire (put up for auction in 193AD by its disgruntled military), there remains any number of great deals awaiting a visit to Aucor.com.
A motoring journalist with more than 20 years experience, Ian McLaren will be compiling a series are articles documenting his learning curve when it comes to all things auction. Find him on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok at @IanMcLaren76.
These articles aim to offer insights only and in no way encourage reckless or hit-and-miss purchasing decisions.