Buying & auctions
Should I bid by phone, online, or with an absentee bid?
Never deposit your maximum with anyone. Absentee bids get reached — the house knows your ceiling and the room adjusts. Phone bidding leaks your top to the room in real time. Anonymous online platform bidding costs ~5% extra but keeps your ceiling invisible — worth it when the piece matters.
The Method's take
The Insider Method treats bid channels as information warfare. Your maximum is the single most expensive number you can share: absentee bids are read by the auctioneer, phone bids telegraph your hesitation and ceiling to the room, and both maximize what you pay. Anonymous platform bidding costs a surcharge but buys opacity — the room bids blind. On a serious piece, that 5% buys more margin than it costs.
The math
A €10,000 absentee max that gets reached costs you the full €10,000 — the room stopped exactly where you did, not because the market said so, but because you told them when to stop. The same piece bought anonymously at €8,500 saves €1,500. Over ten lots, that's €15,000 leaked — 150 times the cost of the 24-hour pass that teaches you never to bid naked again.
One question answered here saved you a mistake. The engine answers yours — the exact object, the exact number.
Ask the engine — 24h pass €100