Offer closed
Introduction
An auction or auction is an organized sale based on direct competition, and generally public, that is, to the buyer (bidder) who pays the greatest amount of money or goods in exchange for the product. The auctioned good is awarded to the bidder who has offered the most money for it, although if the auction is in a sealed bid, the good is awarded to the best offer with no possibility of improving it once known.
Traditionally, in theory, two main types are recognized: the sealed auction (which can be first price or second price) and the dynamic auction, which can be ascending (English), descending (Dutch), or "everyone pays" (American auction). There are also reverse or purchase auctions, in which the buyer is the one who calls on potential sellers or suppliers (e.g. government purchases).
A new category of auctions is that of renovations and projects where an auctioneer awards his project to the highest bidder.
History
The word auction has distant historical roots and originally comes from the Latin sub until "Until (spear)"), under spear, because the distribution of conquered lands among the participating soldiers was indicated by inserting a spear into the plot occupied by lot.
Likewise, the sale of war loot was announced with a spear and the sale was carried out in front of it.
One of the most famous historical examples was the wife auction during the Babylonian empire which took place annually. The operation began with the auction of the most beautiful woman and then proceeded one by one with the others. It was in fact an illegal act to obtain a wife outside of said purchasing process.
Equally famous were the auctions of slaves during the Roman Empire, which were captured in military campaigns and then auctioned in the forum. The funds raised in these auctions in turn served to finance the empire's war efforts.
Although transactions such as those described above had flourished in their respective societies, the auction-based sales system had been relatively rare until the 19th century. Possibly the oldest auction house in the world is the Stockholm Auction House (Stockholm Auktionsverk), which was established in 1674 in Sweden.
At the end of the century, shortly after the French Revolution, auctions came to be held in taverns to sell art items. Such auctions were held daily and catalogs were printed to advertise available items that were generally rare collector's items. In some cases these catalogs ended up becoming works of art that contained countless details about the items up for auction. The two largest auction houses, Sotheby's and Christie's, held their first official auction in 1744 and 1766 respectively. In Spain the most important auction house is Balclis, founded in 1979.