Phone bidding is the oldest form of remote participation in a live sale. The bidder is on a telephone with a member of staff who stands or sits in the saleroom, tells the bidder where the bidding is, takes the bidder’s instruction, and raises a paddle on their behalf. For the auctioneer it is simply another bidder in the room; for the bidder it is as close to being there as a voice can manage.
How it works in practice
Phone bidders register in advance for specific lots. The auction house allocates lines, which are finite, and prioritises the bidders most likely to buy, so popular lots may have a waiting list. A few lots before the registered lot the staff member calls the bidder, confirms identity and the bid increment, and keeps them on the line through the lot. Each time the auctioneer asks for the next increment, the staff member asks the bidder, and the bidder says yes or no. The staff member’s paddle is the bid. If the bidder wins, the hammer price and buyer’s premium are invoiced as usual.
Phone bids and absentee bids
A phone bid is live and reactive; an absentee bid is a maximum left in advance and executed by the auctioneer’s book. Auction houses usually ask phone bidders to leave a covering absentee bid, so that if the line fails the bidder is not shut out. In a well-run sale the clerk records which paddle numbers were phone lines, so that the result sheet shows the buyer, not the member of staff who held the phone.
Phone bidding in the age of online bidding
Online bidding through the auction house’s own platform does what the phone line does, for every lot, without a member of staff per bidder. Most auction houses now run phone lines only for their highest value lots and for clients who prefer them, and put everyone else on live online bidding. The clerk console in Circuit treats phone bids, absentee bids, room bids and online bids as one stream, so the auctioneer sees every bidder in one place and the result records the actual buyer against the lot. Our guide to timed versus live auctions covers when a live sale with phones is still the right format.
