Will 'Live' Railwayana auction ever restart?

By live I mean at a venue one can attend and bid in person. I miss attending auctions and bidding via the Internet is not the same. You also got to handle and view items before deciding to bid.
To me it was also a social day out and a browse around the stalls.
Is it cheaper for auction houses to remain solely on the net? No venue hire,insurance or the need to hump it all around and set up. Or is the Internet the new normal and do collectors prefer it,what are your thoughts?

Ashley Hill said:

By live I mean at a venue one can attend and bid in person. I miss attending auctions and bidding via the Internet is not the same. You also got to handle and view items before deciding to bid.
To me it was also a social day out and a browse around the stalls.
Is it cheaper for auction houses to remain solely on the net? No venue hire,insurance or the need to hump it all around and set up. Or is the Internet the new normal and do collectors prefer it,what are your thoughts?

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Great Northern Railwayana Auctions are hoping to hold an "in the room" auction on October 2nd, so yes - they will restart, even if this date* cannot proceed.

*They do have a back up plan for this particular auction which turns it into an online one over two weeks, but the fact they are even planning it as a live auction shows their intentions.

That's great news about GNRA,let's hope others follow suit.

Real live auctions are very much missed and pressing a computer mouse button to bid at home is nothing like holding your bidder’s card aloft in a packed hall surrounded by like minded individuals. Furthermore, missing elements are seeing, touching and salivating over sales items including those way beyond your budget, the side stalls, the smell of bacon sarnies, fried onions, the mass of grey and beige jackets and trousers and the thrill of sizing up the opposition during bidding which all go to making it a grand day out.
Handling items before the bidding is really important because photos in catalogues don’t always show the true condition of an item and the terms ‘good condition’ ‘excellent condition’ vary according to the individual auction houses.
I feel especially sorry for the stall holders because I and others rely on these to spend money on items if our bids are insufficient in the sale room and we don’t want to return home empty handed, especially after a long journey.
Here’s hoping for a return to auctions as we know and love them but not before it’s safe to do so.

GNRA is not going to be live, I spoke to David Robinson there when dropping some items off at his place over a month ago and even then they knew they couldn’t do it in the hall. I believe that both they and Talisman still intend to resume live auctions, GCRA aren’t giving hints either way yet, but GWRA, arguably the leaders of the pack from a vendor’s perspective are intimating that they will not be resuming live auctions.

Speaking as a vendor of many years I am getting great results via the internet auctions, especially GWRA. And as a bidder I am actually in far greater control when bidding in online auctions and will probably never bid in a hall again.

I acknowledge that the social aspect of live auctions is important to many, its of no interest to me though, but that is merely a personal reflection. Anyone going to Quorn on Sunday?

I too once thought hall viewing and handling was essential but in fact it’s turned out not to be through the pandemic - the image quality in GWRA, GCRA and GNRA is so good now as to enable bidding with confidence.

The trouble with online bidding is that you have to arrange and then pay for your item to be delivered. That is on top of buyers premium and VAT so it ain't cheap. Perhaps that's the trouble. Before auction houses went professional the seller paid commission and the buyer the hammer price and everybody knew where they were. Now you have to think of hammer price + buyers premium + VAT + delivery. It all adds up once the virtual hammer has fallen.

The next Railwayana auction at Thirsk (18th September) appears to be a proper live auction.

THIS IS A LIVE ON SITE AUCTION

*** NO INTERNET BIDDING**

Viewing Friday 17th September 10am - 2pm or on the morning of the sale.

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madannie77 said:

The next Railwayana auction at Thirsk (18th September) appears to be a proper live auction.

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Cheers madannie77,a bit too far away from me but it's good to know some auctions are returning to normal.

As long as you can go and pick any winnings up then you should be no worse off from online bidding as long as there is no surcharge on internet bids. I like live auctions but being able to bid online does save a long day out when one may not be sure of getting anything. Also, as a vendor I don't think I would consider consigning to any auction house that doesn't do online bidding - why on earth would you want your items to be concealed from such a huge potential audience?

thedbdiboy said:

why on earth would you want your items to be concealed from such a huge potential audience?

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Even before Covid those auction houses I attended offered commission bidding plus telephone bidding for higher value items. All railwayana catalogues are now online. The majority of general auctions now also offer Internet bidding as well so no doubt this will happen in the railwayana world.