How to catalog an estate auction, from the first piece to the import
An estate is hundreds of unrelated objects, one consignor and a date. This is the order of work that keeps it from turning into a spreadsheet nobody trusts.
1. Decide the sections and the numbers before you touch anything
Walk the property once and sort what you saw into sections: by room, or by kind of thing (furniture, ceramics, silver, pictures, books, garden, box lots). The sections are the order the room will be worked and the order the printed catalog follows, so name them as you would call them from the rostrum.
Give every lot one number and never reuse a number inside a sale. When you find a second piece that belongs with lot 27, call it 27A rather than renumbering the sale. Take the consignor's paperwork first: who they are, your reference for the consignment, the commission and settlement terms. A blank consignment receipt is a starting layout for that.
2. Photograph before you write
Take the whole piece first, square on, against a plain background if you can, then the maker's mark, the label, the underside, the signature, and every flaw you are about to describe. A lot holds up to 12 photographs, 3 MB each; the first is the cover, so make it the one that sells the piece.
Do it at the piece, one lot at a time. The classic misfiling is a card full of photographs matched to lots at the end of the day by guesswork. If the photograph and the record are made together, they cannot be separated later.
3. Write the title as the line a bidder scans
Lead with the thing, then the maker or the period, then the material. Put the most searchable words first, because the end of a long title is the part a platform cuts: LiveAuctioneers stops at 49 characters and Auction Flex 360 at 50 on a bulk import.
Too long: A very fine and rare antique George III period mahogany chest of drawers with brass handles
Better (43 characters): George III mahogany chest of two over three
4. Write the description in a fixed order
Say what it is, who made it or what it is marked, when, what it is made of, how big it is (height by width by depth), and what is with it. Keep to facts you can see or know. How a piece is attributed, and the words the house uses for that, are the house's own judgment and wording; this is where an experienced colleague reads over your shoulder.
Two short over three long drawers, oval escutcheons, bracket feet, 92 cm wide.
5. Describe the condition so a bidder who cannot come still knows
Grade it in the trade's words: good (sound, no faults to mention); fair (worn, complete, nothing broken); with faults (chips, losses, repairs — described in the note); restored (worked on since it was made); as found (not examined closely; sold as it stands); poor (damaged and not worth restoring). Then write the faults in the note, with where each one is: "chip to the left escutcheon; one handle replaced", not "some wear". Photograph each fault you name. Pieces you have not examined closely are "as found", and the note says so.
6. Put the estimate on it, and keep the reserve to yourself
The estimate is a bracket around where you expect the hammer to fall. Keep it tight enough to mean something. A start bid sits at or below the low estimate (LiveAuctioneers will not accept one above it). The reserve is the consignor's private floor: it goes into the files your own platform imports and never into anything a bidder can read, and Lotdesk never writes it into a public file.
7. Box lots and sets
Describe the best two or three items by name and say how many there are in all ("box of assorted brass and ironwork, about twelve pieces"). Identical items in one lot go in as a quantity rather than as separate lots. A box lot still gets its photograph, or bidders will assume the worst.
8. Proof the catalog before anything leaves the building
Print the catalog and read it in lot order, from the top, as a bidder would. Check that the numbers run without a gap or a repeat, that each lot sits in its section, that every lot has an estimate (a lot without one stays out of the catalog until it has one), and that nothing reads oddly when said aloud. It is the cheapest hour of the whole job.
9. Hand it to the platform, three lots first
Export in the format of the platform you sell on and read its list of things to check before you import: titles that were shortened, lots with no consignor code, lots whose quantity is above one. Import three or four lots first and look at them, photographs included, before you send the whole sale. Keep the original file. The pages for Auction Flex, LiveAuctioneers, Wavebid and HiBid say which names and limits each one has and how sure that is.
The whole job on one card
| When | What has to be true |
|---|---|
| Before | Sections decided, consignor's name, reference and terms taken, numbering plan agreed |
| At the piece | Photographs (overall, mark, base, flaws), then title, description, condition, estimate, in that order |
| Each evening | Every lot has a number, a title, a photograph and an estimate; nothing is waiting in the outbox |
| Proof | Print the catalog; read it in lot order; fix what you would not say aloud |
| Handover | Export for your platform, read the warnings, import three lots first, check the photographs matched |
Two more printable pages go with this: a condition report and a lot description layout. They are starting layouts only. Lotdesk writes no legal text: terms of sale, consignment terms and anything about valuation are your own.
Do it in Lotdesk
Lotdesk is built for steps 2 to 9: the lot is written at the piece with its photographs on one record, saved on the phone first, printed as the catalog, and exported for the platform with the photographs named the way it matches them.
Open a book — free for your first 25 lotsLook at the sample sale first