Bid

“ The bidding went on. One by one the numbers were sold until all were gone. Then the auctioneer announced that bids for the “high field,” that is, any number above five hundred and ninety-four, were in order. My companion suddenly came to life.
“Ten pounds,” he called.
I started. “For mercy sake, Mr. Heathcroft,” I protested, “don't let anything I have said influence your bidding. I may be entirely wrong.”
He turned and surveyed me through the eyeglass.
“You may wish to bid yourself,” he drawled. “Careless of me. So sorry. Shall I withdraw the bid?”
“No, no. I'm not going to bid. ”

“ When bidding don't get excited and think you're attending an auction of shirt-waists at a fire-sale. It distresses your partner terribly to hear you say, "I'll bid two dollars!" when what you meant was two spades. Much better it is that you smile across the table at him and say, "I bid you good evening!"136
You shouldn't get up and dance the Kitchen Sink dance every time you take a trick. It looks more genteel and picturesque to do the Castle Walk. ”

“ SUGGESTIONS FOR GOOD PLAY. The great secret of success in auction lies in sound bidding, so that no bid shall have a double meaning and the partner may be able to rely absolutely on the information which the bid should convey. ”

“ Then the merchants came and opened the gate of bidding for the wood and bid against one another till its price reached a thousand dinars, when they left bidding and my host said to me, “Hear, O my son, this is the current price of thy goods in hard times like these: wilt thou sell them for this or shall I lay them up for thee in my storehouses, till such time as prices rise?” “O my lord,” answered I, “the business is in thy hands: do as thou wilt.” Then asked he, “Wilt thou sell the wood to me, O my son, for an hundred gold pieces over and above what the merchants have bidden for it?” ”

“ This description of auction is not carried on at a fixed place, for the auctioneer, bawling out the price last bid, presses through the crowd of human beings, and runs from place to place until an advance is made, whereupon he is obliged to return to the former bidder, and inform him that his offer has been superseded. It is very remarkable that these criers can always accurately find out the man who has made a bid for the article in question, and thus expressed a wished to become a purchaser, in the immense crowd. ”

“ Where a sale is expressed to be without reserve, or where an upset price has been reached, the auctioneer must, after the lapse of a reasonable interval, accept the bid of the highest bona fide bidder. ”

“ Instead of being a dozen bids, all different, and differing sometimes as much as ten, twenty, thirty, forty, or a hundred dollars or more, they would bid the same. If they all agreed on the number of horses and men it would take, and about what it would cost, they would bid about alike, wouldn't they? But when they are bidding they honestly differ. One man says it would take twenty horses, and another says "no, it will take forty." Do you not know that the number of horses depends a great deal upon the kind of man who makes the estimate. ”

“ It is not the fierce excitement of bidding one against the other that causes the great gathering at the sale, but 'everybody's tied to go,' as they say—bound to go to the sale, just as everybody is bound to go when they are bid to a funeral. ”

“ Once I bid for a little old crock, offering double or treble its original value, but the old man took not the slightest notice, and continued to offer the article to bids that counted pence to the shillings of my offer. ”

“ Now, if it is a badge of fraud for them to bid upon the same route and apparently against each other, I will ask you if it is not a badge of fair dealing that they were not found bidding against each other. They bid on about twelve hundred routes, and much to their astonishment they got one hundred and thirty-four contracts.
You have heard here a great deal of talk about the number of men and horses. We will show you all about it. Men differ upon this subject. If men did not differ upon it at all these bids would be alike. ”

“ It would seem to be all on the side of the buyer and against the seller, who must lose many a bid from a bona fide purchaser at a lower figure. The matter of human nature doubtless figures in the problem, because there is some little [Pg 111] feeling of shame about returning an article bought in under competition, no matter what the guarantee may be. ”

“ Bidders should first propose for service strictly according to the advertisement, and then, if they desire, separately for different service; and, if the regular bid be the lowest offered for the advertised service, the other proposition may be considered.'
'SECT. 275. ”

“ When the sale commenced, there happened to be but few persons there, and I asked the auctioneer to sell the sofa first, as I wanted to go, and would bid for it if it were sold then. Few persons bid freely at the opening of a sale.
‘What’s bid for this splendid sofa?’ he began.
‘I’ll give you fifteen dollars for it,’ said I; ‘it’s not worth more than that, for it’s dreadfully abused.’
‘Fifteen dollars! fifteen dollars! only fifteen dollars for this beautiful sofa!’ he went on; and a man next to me bid seventeen dollars. ”

“ Sometimes property is offered on lease to the highest bidder. “Roup” is the Scottish term for an auction. A bid in itself is only an offer, and may accordingly be retracted at any time before its acceptance by the fall of the hammer or otherwise. ”

“ Members not desiring or not able to attend the sale of money in person may have some one else bid for them, or they may leave a written bid with the Secretary, on blanks prepared for that purpose, who will make it for them at the sale. ”

“ AUCTIONEER. Five thousand eight hundred bid. For five thousand eight hundred. Come along, gen'lemen, come along. We're not beaten. Thank you, sir. [HORNBLOWER] Five thousand nine hundred. And—? [DAWKER] Six thousand. Six thousand bid. Six thousand bid. For six thousand! The Centry—most desirable spot in the county—going for the low price of six thousand.
HILLCRIST. [Muttering] Low! Heavens!
AUCTIONEER. Any advance on six thousand? Come, gen'lemen, we haven't dried up? A little spirit. Six thousand? For six thousand? For six thousand pounds? Very well, I'm selling. ”

“ It is true that in every association formed to bid at the sale, and who appoint one of their number to bid in behalf of the company, there is an agreement, express or implied, that no other member will participate in the bidding; and hence, in one sense, it may be said to have the effect to prevent competition. ”

“ There is one other way, and that is to put in a bid to carry the mail at so many thousand dollars, and then have below that straw bidders, men not responsible, and when the time comes to accept the bid of those gentlemen they refuse to carry it out, and then the law is that it shall be given to the next highest, and he refuses, and the next, and he refuses, and the next highest, and he refuses, and so on until it comes to the highest bidder. ”

“ Let us come right down to practical matters and things. For instance, suppose one of this jury is in the stone-cutting business, and the Government should issue an advertisement calling for proposals to furnish dressed granite, and specify that every man who bid must file a bond in a penalty of five thousand dollars to carry out his contract, and that that bond must be approved by the postmaster here. Suppose it was a contract of great proportions. Would the man who bid be willing that the amount of the bid should be inserted in the blank to be passed upon by the postmaster? ”

“ Say that four men bid on the same route, one man four thousand dol-ars, another man three thousand dollars, another man two thousand dollars, and another man one thousand dollars.
Now, the man who bids one thousand dollars is of no account, has not a dollar in the world, and so when the bid is given to him he does not want it. He is what they call a straw man. The law provides then that the next man may have it. ”

“ The first bid was a farthing, which seemed to be far beyond the expectation of the salesman, who at once knocked the lot down. The sale was such a success that it is proposed to knock down several more lots in a like manner. ”

“ Robbins started the bidding at ten dollars. A stout man, in an ecclesiastical garb, went to fifteen. A voice from another part of the crowd raised to twenty. The three bid alternately, raising by bids of five, until the offer was fifty dollars. Then the stout man dropped out, and Robbins, as a sort of coup de main, went to a hundred. ”

“ In the excitement of auction sales higher prices may be paid than would be prudent, or, indeed, it may be that the quality of the specimen bid for is not exactly that which the buyer requires, and the difficulty of changing it is accentuated when the purchaser buys at an auction. ”

“ The bidding then commences, each bidder being responsible only for the amount of his advance on the last bid. After the sale the horse and its rider are run up to the yard-arm amidst loud cheers. Fireworks are let off, the man gets off the horse’s back, and, cutting the rope, lets it fall into the water. ”

“ I actually thought I would hae drapped through the earth wi’ perfect shame, though I was a little relieved when I saw he was set down for an idiot, and heard the gentlemen freely crack their jokes on him. Weel, the auction commenced, and when twa or three bids were gi’en, he looks up at the cant-master so innocently, and says, in his ain style, ‘Ho, ho, may I gie a bid?’ ‘To be sure, my fine fellow,’ says the man, laughing doon at him; ‘bid up, and nae doot ye’ll get the property.’ The bidding was up to £150. ‘£200,’ cries Jack, the roars o’ the company. ”

“ A sale by auction is to them as good—better—than a play; so is everything on this earth, in, about, or in the remotest connection with which, there is something that can be bought, or something that can be sold, or something that can be higgled for. If ever you attend auctions, my friend and reader, I should advise you not to bid against the Jews. If it seem to you that any one of the Caucasian Arabs has set his mind upon the acquisition of an article, let him bid for it and buy it, a’goodness name ”

“ They require that contracts be placed by competitive bidding, the award to be granted 'to the responsible bidder whose bid * * * will be the most advantageous to the United States, price and other factors considered.' [7] There are statutory exceptions, the relevant ones being as follows:
' (a) Purchases of and contracts for property or services covered by this chapter shall be made by formal advertising in all cases in which the use of such method is feasible and practicable under the existing conditions and circumstances. ”

“ Professing a strict regard to justice, he ordered the effects of the treasurer to be sold by auction, and encouraged the people to bid considerably more than they were worth, warranting all the lots to be good bargains. ”

“ With items of considerable importance, it is sometimes a better plan for several reasons, under present auction conditions, to place the bid in the hands of a well-known, reliable dealer who will bid in the book for a small commission on the price paid, and who will assume responsibility for the book being correct and perfect as represented in the catalogue. ”

“ Another habit is for a buyer, when making an offer which he expects will be accepted by the seller, to ask the seller to open his hand. This being done, he slaps the open hand in token of an agreement as he makes what he pretends to be his last bid. ”

“ In the forty years I have been bidding I have found a new thrill in every sale. From my earliest years at Henkels’s auctions to the most recent sales in London, Paris, and New York, I have repeatedly known a fine exhilaration. I sniff the air like an old war horse at the smell of powder. How often have I felt my pulses race, my temperature rise with the rising bids! But as I grow older I find I have to fight that deadliest of maladies—conservatism. This is one thing in the world that the collector should pray to be delivered from. ”

“ The husband, as auctioneer, put up the wife for sale, and requested the bidders to commence. 'Five shillings' was the first offer, then 'ten,' then 'fifteen.' The price continued rising until it came to 'three pounds', which last bid was made by the ostler of the Lord Exmouth. ”

“ The conditions, whatever they are, will bind him; for by one of the legal fictions of which we have still so many, the auctioneer, who is in reality the agent for the vendor, becomes also the agent for the buyer, and by putting down the names of bidders and the biddings, he binds him to whom the lot is knocked down to the sale and the conditions,—the falling of the auctioneer's hammer is the acceptance of the offer, which completes the agreement to purchase. ”

“ I will say that we’ve got a devilish good close combine on the waterfront—we fellows have been on the job for a long time. When the Government auctions off anything we get together and fix the top price at which any bid shall go, and then we cut the cards to settle who shall pick the plum at that price. ”

“ Anxious to render this Almanack of as much use as possible to the man of business, the editor has, at the last moment, found room for this document:—
CONDITIONS OF SALE BY AUCTION IN IRELAND. I. The highest bidder to be the purchaser, unless some gentleman bids more.
II. If any dispute arises as to who was the highest bidder, the sale is to stop until the parties have fought it out: but if either combatant is killed, he shall be allowed to amend his bidding for the sake of his bereaved family. ”