AT YOUR BIDDING: The rise of online auctions

A surprising silver lining of lockdown has been the uplift that salerooms have enjoyed as they pivoted swiftly to open up online. Making auctions more accessible to all has ensured a steady new wave of buyers, finds Caroline Wheater

- Caroline Wheater

Can it really be two years since we first went into national lockdown in March 2020, and life as we knew it came to a halt? No brunches out at local antiques centres, no trips to museums and galleries with friends, no browsing country fairs for flotsam and jetsam. No auctions either. Auctions were classed as retail, so all sales stopped,' recalls Clare Durham, Associate Director of Woolley & Wallis, based in Salisbury. 'Here, all bar two senior staff were put on furlough.'

In June 2020, with the phased reopening of society, auctions resumed across the country, but activity was limited by social distancing measures. Because of this, a lot of auction houses went online-only, and when postponed sales finally took place there was a pent-up demand for things like silver, jewellery and furniture,' says Clare. At Woolley & Wallis, this desire exploded on 23rd July when a royal presentation silver cigarette case, given by King George VI to his speech therapist Lionel Logue in 1937, along with a letter, came up for sale. With a starting price of £4,000, it eventually sold for £79,300 (including buyer's premium), as a private phone bidder locked horns with Wartski, the London jewellers, to bring home the prize that his wife had first spotted in The Telegraph.