The Simple Story of The Auction

Among the international auctions, the news of tens or hundreds of million US dollar bids for some paintings could alarm any audience. He might think that an art auction is specially catered for the billionaires only. The bidders could be an Arabian prince, dictators, or Hollywood stars who have money to burn. Therefore, it is far-reaching for me to have a place in the auction. Nonetheless, that art auction has tempted me to attend. After attending the auctions several times, the fear of art bidding has disappeared and it seems that to bid on some art pieces is so easy that everyone can do. Thus, I would recommend everyone to experience some art bidding for his pleasure; at least once in a lifetime.

Unsurprisingly, the headline news always highlights the extremely high bid result to attract the people’s attention around the world. Let’s think on another way round if the news reported the very normal price or very low bid, what would happen. Of course, nobody cares about reading the news, and it would waste the space on the news agency website. Nonetheless, various artworks are affordable. The proportion of the deary price bids was very marginal if compared with the economical ones. If you feel like to know about the price of the objects and the auction dates, you can browse at the world’s largest auction house websites: Christie’s or Sotheby’s. If you feel like the moderate ones, you could have your eyes on Bonhams, Phillips, or Heritage Auctions, etc. Not only are the art piece details presented on the website, but anything around the world is also ready for the bidders to own ranging from a long-range missile or Egyptian mummies to canned artist’s excrement. Anything showed in the auction list used to be bid in the past. Those objects have been tagged with their estimated price done by the specialists. Mostly, the auction house has set the starting bidding price lower than the market to tempt its prospected customers to join the bidding.

If you feel like owning some artworks presided on the auction houses’ websites, you can simply register yourself through their websites, email, or telephone call. Some auction houses, Christie’s or Sotheby’s, have their international offices in Thailand where you can easily drop them a line. These auction houses will ask you to submit a copy of your id card or passport, and water or electricity bills to make sure that you reside in Thailand. Sometimes, financial documents or banking statements are required with the lowest amount of money paid for the bidding objects. After submitting all documents required, it is time to squeeze your pocket. Before the auction date, there will be a showcase of the objects for those who care about details. If there would be some large or outstanding objects, those houses will set global showcase exhibitions around the world to reap the attention of their promising customers.Sometimes, they set their exhibitions so lavishly that I felt it was my luck to be born in this life and immerse myself among the world-class collectibles.

Recently, I had managed my time to see the objects arranged by Sotheby’s in Hongkong. This house reserved a gigantic convention hall which was as large as ‘Impact Convention Hall’ in ‘Muangthong Thani’, Nonthaburi, Thailand. This was set to exhibit the treasure and extravagant collectibles to be auctioned. These objects included a large gleaming jewel that was as big as a Marian plum and could blind my eyes. As well as this, the whole mammoth skeletons were shown without any missing pieces. The antique teacup, that was never been used by the Chinese Emperor, was also displayed.

My most impressive part is the art division which revealed the artworks by the world’s prominent artists: Picasso, Monet, Vincent Van Gogh, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani, and Andy Warhol, etc. The long list of the artists could not be filled in this article. Otherwise, I would not write about something else. The advantage of this exhibition was the free-entry ticket because if you want to see these finest artworks in the museum, you need to pay for the ticket. Basically, these auction houses make money from the auction, not from the entry tickets’ sale. On the auction day, if you preside at the auction yourself, they will give you a big card with a number that represents yourself and a catalog. After receiving everything you need, it’s time to find the spot to rest yourself and wait until the auction starts. In every auction place around the world, the chairs for the customers are similarly set with the podium and hammer in the front. On stage, there is a big screen showing the pictures and the starting prices of the objects. Should you feel like owning something, you can simply raise the card up while the host is calling the price aloud. During that time, there will be many people raising their cards. This means they are going to raise the price of the object.

The price will be leveled up until no one placing the bid. After that, the host will count down to close the auction and knock his hammer which is the sign of the ending process. It is recommended that you should restrict your budget in your mind or have a written note in hand; otherwise, you will be lured by the skyrocketing price which will tempt up your adrenaline level. If there would be anyone ready to fight for owning a similar object like you, you may forget anything and leverage your budget without reason resulting in selling another property to pay for the object. That’s a sad story.

For those who feel inconvenient to attend the real auction in person, they can do it at home easily even you are naked lying on the bed. Firstly, you need to inform the officers in advance about your target objects with your intended price. When the auction is running and nobody places his bid higher than yours, the sales can be finalized and the winner of the bid is you. However, it does not mean you need to pay for the whole amount of money you prior informed. For example, if you set your price for something at 10THB, the leveled-up price is 1THB and the final price is 8THB. As a winner, you need to pay 9THB because you need to pay more than the last bid for 1 THB. Hopefully, this won’t be confusing.

Secondly, you can place your order via a telephone call. When the time is coming, there will be an officer from the office calling you to make sure that this telephone line and signal are reliable. When your target object is about to start its auction, the same officer will drop you a line and act on your behalf in raising your bid in the auction. Everything will be done at your request like he is your avatar.

Another method to join the auction is to register yourself online and propose you bid in real-time with onsite bidders. At the auction site, there will be some officers to take care of online bidding and raise their hand on behalf of the online bidders. As my home internet signal is unstable, I have never tried this method as I would lose my bid.

After the sales have been finalized by the auctioneer and you are the winner of the bid, the monetary transaction needs to be done through cash, credit card, banking transferred, or any kind that suits you. Please note that there will be a 20%-30% managing fee topped up your bidding price depending on the company’s policy. Therefore, the bidder has to take this expense into account including shipping fee and imported tax if the object is auctioned abroad. The auction houses can recommend the shipping company, or you can choose it yourself.

After learning how to place a bid, the next question is what to buy or to bid. This is a very open-ended question as everyone has different tastes and preferences. Personally, I like to bid for Thai artists’ works because I can’t make an effort for world-class artworks. Otherwise, if possible, I would buy some negligible works made by a famous artist. In this case, with the same amount of money, I would invest in buying some finest artworks from Thai Artists as I think that being the leader in the local must be better than the follower in the global.

The reason I like to bid on Thai artworks in foreign countries is sometimes I would be lucky enough to get some masterpieces at a very reasonable price like you pay for the youth artists’ works. In the past, those masterpieces were bought by foreigners and were scattered around every corner of the earth. After the owner’s death, his heirs started to sell the properties at a bargain price at the auction companies. Without knowing the real value of those artworks, the heirs set those prices at very low as they might be afraid that they can not make money on their properties. Sometimes, some masterworks from Thailand were on sale in the auction at a very low price somewhere on earth where nobody realizes the real value. The final price was unexpectedly low like you got it for free.

Another reason to join the auction is to support and level up the price of Thai artworks. In an international circumstance, the specialist will estimate the price of artwork by examining the price statistic in the past. This is the problem of art trading in Thailand. Most Thai collectors prefer trading their art pieces privately resulting in the struggling price system in the global market. Unlike what happens neighborhood, they make use of the art auction to raise their artwork price which is skyrocketed like the famous western artworks. Therefore, we should contribute our This art circle by placing the bid in the auction to scaffold our standard reaching to the world-class level and to let the world admire the beauty of Thai artworks.

After explaining each step of the auction in detail, I do hope that there will be more Thai people would join the auction to energize the Thai art circle and to set up the standard of Thai artwork’s price. Meanwhile, if we come across it at the auction site, please be kind to me; do not raise the bid so high, pleaseeeee.