Help/advice on how 'provisionally sold' works at an auction

forgotmyname

If they said provisionally sold I would have thought its not reached the minimum selling price. If it was really close they could have sold it
and negotiated between buyer/seller or even cut their fees to help with the sale.  I would not have expected to actually get it at the bid
price though if only provisionally sold.

Often they will not dilvulge the reserve price so they can re-auction it again at a later date. £1100 bid on a £2000 minimum maybe
too far from the mark to negotiations though. Maybe they found its just better to auction it again at a later date?

RFW

What form was the auction?

Was it a live auction, where bids went lot by lot or did all the lots end at a set time?

Just trying to work out what type of auction it was and what's going on.

JodyGibbons

Hi all,

I got some more information from the auctioneer. Apparently the reserve was always £2,000. Their online platform set an opening starting price of £1,100, at an amount where bids can start to be left. They went on to say "Reserves are confidential between the owner and ourselves, but they can never be higher than bottom estimate. Often sellers will accept bids that are below the reserve and that is why we accept provisional bids, 99% of them are converted, even if there has to be some negotiation. On this occasion the bidding stopped at £1,100, but the seller was set on £2,000 or very close."

forgotmyname - yes this is what I expect may happen. Re-auction at a later date as the closing bid and reserve had too big of gap and I wasn't prepared to go to nearly £2,000.

RFW - it was a live auction at an auction house with in room bids, telephone bids and online bids. I was watching the livestream and bid online.

Many Thanks
Jody