Buying at the auction house - 5 top tips
Second hand? I love new things. I love modern styling and streamlined glass and Italian-designed beautiful things. I adore symmetry and concrete, marble and granite and the amazing array of wonderful new fabrics, furniture, carpets, interiors objects and paint colours. But I also have a passion for old and quirky, one-offs and cast offs. Old, vintage and quirky pieces have soul, history and are often of superior build as well as being a happily sustainable solution.
I see ‘home’ is an echo of oneself. Surrounding yourself with the things you love, a place where you can completely relax can also be a reflection of where you are in your life and the journey you have travelled.
Quirky, old/vintage and unusual treasures make me happy. They echo my desire to be different. Not run of the mill but surprising and playful. I also get great pleasure from seeking a successful juxtaposition of old interior finds with new purchases; history versus the here and now and the desire to create harmony with this contrast in my own home. There is something comforting about embracing an heirloom, or finding something that was made the year I was born or just sympathetically repurposing or revitalising something that maybe has seen better days and making it the focal point in a room.
The great challenge is finding these treasures. I am not going to lie, it can be time consuming. Especially if you don’t know exactly what you are looking for. Before the internet, I used to drag my husband, then boyfriend, round local Sunday antique markets, mainly for inspiration and because I couldn’t afford the lovely new things that I saw in the magazines. He still married me though it instilled in him a life-long aversion to any form of antique treasure hunting with me once we were finally married. I think perhaps he had suffered enough!
Anyway, to get back to the purpose of this blog post. How auction houses are a great avenue to finding treasures.
The first thing most people think about when talking auctions is Ebay. Available to all, worldwide, easy to use and a completely brilliant invention. Though I feel that my experience of it has changed over the last few years. It seems that for interiors, furniture and so on, most of the sellers these days are professional Ebay sellers and businesses rather than someone chucking out gran’s old chair and wanting a few quid for it. Furniture mostly has already been up-cycled or reupholstered, reimagined for immediate purchase and use. This is great if you want something instantly done but it will come with a price.
For those of us looking for a one-off bargain or something to do-up ourselves in our own style, this kind of thing is now better sauced from Gumtree, charity furniture shops, house clearance, antique markets, Facebook Marketplace and auction houses. Searching for the perfect item is all a bit hit and miss and takes time.
I started to visit auction houses a few years ago. I had taken up upholstery as a hobby and was looking for chairs to strip down and rebuild. I had always thought that it was a place where antique dealers hang out. It is! But not exclusively. Since the Covid crisis hit all auctions have gone online which makes them more accessible but also has taken away the fun of pre-auction browsing and the buzz of the sale. Hopefully this joy will return before too long. Also if you look regularly you find some most unusual things including this mad sofa (see pic below) that had been in Stringfellow’s Angel’s nightclub. I think there were three on offer and they went for about £200 each in the end and the tub chairs (of which there were loads) went for £10 each. I didn’t bid, I was a bit grossed out by the thought of bringing one home though as you can see not grossed out enough to sit on the sofa!
Min’s 5 top tips when buying at auction
1. Do your company research.
Google will throw up local auction houses nearest to you. Most auction houses will have ‘Fine Antiques Sales’ and maybe specialist sales which will be for higher ticket items but they will also hold ‘General Sales’ sometimes called ‘Saturday’ or ‘Weekend sales’ and these will have the less important pieces and bidding usually will start at £10 or £20. If you are looking for something specific and you want to cast your net wider then register onto www.the-saleroom.com. This has many of the live auctions taking place throughout the country. You can either bid live or place your maximum bid and it bids for you. You can also register alerts particularly if you are looking for something specific.
2. Do your product research.
If you see something either online or whilst browsing it is prudent to out what the item is approximately worth. Sometimes the auction house will give a ‘guide price’ but it is still worth researching yourself as they may have got this wrong and by putting in a low bid you may still get the item if they have over estimated. Equally the guide price may be way under what others are prepared to pay for the item. I put a bid in recently for a peacock chair that was pretty and in reasonable condition and reckoned that it would be worth a maximum of £100. It went for £350 which I thought was madness. But I guess if you have two people bidding who really really want it then someone ends up overpaying. This brings me to tip number 3
3. Work out in advance the maximum that you are willing to pay and stick to it!
I very rarely do live bidding either in person, online or via telephone because it stresses me out and I know that I would get carried away. Instead I have nearly always left a commission bid which is the maximum bid that I would like to place on an item (you can do this online if you register on the auctioneer’s website or you can fill in a form and leave it in person) and either I win or I don’t. Unless you really really have to have the item and are willing to bid to the bitter end, you need to be prepared to pay maybe a lot more than you wanted to.
4. Your final hammer price won’t be the final price you pay.
Do not forget to factor in the additional cost of the ‘buyer’s premium’ and VAT. The buyer’s premium varies depending on the auction house but it is usually around 22% payable on each lot and then you need to pay VAT on the premium. Items bought at www.the-saleroom.com will incur a higher fee to allow for the the-saleroom.com's commission - this is typically an additional 5% so you would look to pay an additional 27% on each lot plus the VAT. This is really important when you bid to think about this so you stay in your budget! There is no buyer’s premium on Ebay and so by buying at an auction house it can add a considerable amount to your final bill
5. Think about how you will transport your newly acquired treasure.
Before you bid, the auction house should be able to give you measurements but if the item won’t fit in a car you will need to think about how you will get it home. Most auctioneers want the item collected within a week of the auction or they will charge a storage fee. Often they have ‘recommended’ delivery companies but these can be very expensive so think about this too before you start to bid
This all might sound a bit complicated but in fact it isn’t really. It is fun and you can get some amazing bargains if you stay low on price and are prepared to lose out. Recent auction ‘wins’ for me include a mid century nest of tables, an original film poster of The Shining (italian version), a mid century chest of drawers and a small victorian nursing chair, a mid century secretaire, a teak drinks trolley and an old media cabinet. Many of these need glamming up and I hope to showcase their transformations here on my blog and on my Instagram. Let me know below about your own experiences of finding unusual and beautiful preloved interiors and where you found them or if you have any other tips or insights into buying at auction.