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The famous Rapp auction house in Wil is used for a full room. Most of the offers are now made over the Internet.
Instead of 200, only about 20 people sit in the hallway of the Rapp auction house in Wil. At the front, slightly elevated, sits auctioneer and owner Peter Rapp. At the back of the hall, offers are accepted in the traditional way by phone. What seems like little engagement is misleading: Most of it happens online. During the four-day auction, the auction house waits for up to 3,000 bidders, via the Internet alone.
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Internet bidders are nothing new to the Rapp auction house. In addition to room and phone bids, the auctioneer has long been accepting bids on a screen. However, thanks to Corona, many more people have signed up online than usual. Among them are bidders from the US, China, Australia and Russia. That required a lot of preparation. “We have our own giga line from Technischen Betriebe Wil,” explains Managing Director Marianne Rapp.
Just checking out the new clients took a long time. “There are new customers who want a high limit of a quarter of a million and we have to look carefully,” says Marianne Rapp. Check if other auction houses can give a reference or if the guarantee can be transferred in advance.
Coach Marianne Rapp
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However, purely virtual participation in an auction is also demanding for bidders. In particular, it is not easy to judge why to bid. “We get a lot of inquiries about individual lots,” says Marianne Rapp. For all this special effort, extra personnel have been hired.
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Corona did not harm the desire to buy, observes Marianne Rapp. Rather, people are willing to spend money. But what’s missing is the frame of mind: “In normal times we would have between 200 and 250 people here for such an auction. That is lively and also exciting for the auctioneer. The relocation to the Internet makes this atmosphere impossible. “
Offers are also accepted by phone.
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However, there are duels between bidders over the Internet. The signal for a new offer sounds every second. A Baslertaube stamp is up for auction for CHF 5,000 and a “Rayon Eins” stamp for CHF 130,000.
