50,000 'bored' people unexpectedly tune in to Yorkshire antique auction

Expected to attract just a few dozen locals, the online Victorian and Home Furnishings Auction webcast live from the Exchange Saleroom in Driffield was watched by almost 50,000 people.

Bidders joined in from as far away as Australia, South Africa, Singapore, Chile, the USA and Canada.

Some of the more surreal sales involved four lots of china sold to a lady in Singapore, a box of lighters knocked down to a collector in Austria and two vintage primus stoves that were bought for £50 by a South African bidder – who has had to pay £60 to get them sent to him in Cape Town.

The auction not only achieved double the pre-sale estimate of what it would make but also established a new saleroom record for a general auction.

Auctioneer Andy Spicer said: “The crazy thing is that it was just a small, fairly run-of-the-mill sale that we pulled together with a skeleton crew during the lockdown.

"Whilst we hoped it would work we weren’t entirely sure what the public’s response would be to an online auction webcast live from an empty saleroom.

“We did realise ahead of the sale that it was attracting an unexpectedly high level of interest but I was amazed when the tech boys gave us the stats – and told me where some of the bidding had been coming from.”

Mr Spicer said he thought people had tuned in because everyone was "at home because of lockdowns...bored" and most salerooms have halted auctions because of the pandemic.

He added: "We were the first Fine Art auctioneers in our region to return to the rostrum and have a go with an exclusively online sale."

The next online auction will be another Victorian and Home Furnishing Auction on Friday May 22 and a Fine Art & Antiques Auction a fortnight later.