Chandelier Bid

Chandelier bids, a.k.a. consignor bidding, buy-in bidding, off-the-wall bidding, consecutive bidding, and rafter bidding...are all names for a shifty way to raise prices at auction. Kinda like...you raise a chandelier.

Check out an auction. The auctioneer is calling out accepted offers, people are calling out offers...lots of yelling, people shuffling around. The auctioneer calls out an accepted bid, looking slightly over the crowd, pretending to answer an offer. It’s difficult for anyone in the crowd to say whom he’s looking at, because everyone just assumes he’s looking at someone behind them. And in the meantime, the auctioneer just nudged the price of the item up a bit with this “bid,” and created the illusion of more interest in the item.

In the past, there have been public policies allowing “bids made on behalf of consigner,” but generally auction participants were not made aware of how that policy was being applied in fake bids during the actual auction.

Oops. That detail must have been left out.