The small round orange and lime stickers pop up like weeds. You can see them on any number of items on the auction tables. They don’t usually bother me because I’m always curious about what people buy – unless the sticker is on something I want.
They were left behind by people who wanted to bid on an item but couldn’t wait around for the auction itself. Most are dealers who make their living buying stuff cheap and hoping to sell it at a profit.
They came, they saw, and they left an absentee bid that presumably was high enough to knock out the competition. They’ve marked their bounty with the stickers, a subtle warning to the rest of us that these items will not go quietly, so tread lightly. At least that’s how I interpret them.
I also leave absentee bids sometimes, especially if I know that an item won’t come up for auction until late in the evening and I don’t want to wait around for hours. I always try to leave a competitive price so I can win. Most times, I’m lucky enough to get the item (the auction house emails me the next day), but sometimes not, especially if it’s African American-related. Most dealers know that “black” sells, and hands shoot up quickly when such an item is offered for bids.
During a preview recently, I decided to look more closely at what items had drawn absentee bids. Some of them made sense while others confounded me. I’ve been around auctions long enough to know that some things just don’t sell well anymore. I’ve also been around long enough to know that there’s a lot of stuff I don’t know. A dealer who slaps a sticker on an item that confuses me may have a buyer who’s looking for that exact thing.
Here’s a sampling of items that bore absentee stickers at a recent auction:
