Finding the auctions on AE
- By Bruce McKinney
The auctions page
Auctions are at the heart of AE and can be a bit difficult, for newcomers, to understand. They are the most complete set of features and indices ever assembled for the auction field. These services deal with auctions in the present tense, that is, upcoming sales and recently posted results. They approach auctions in the books, manuscripts, maps and ephemera fields as a single continuum to make it possible to view upcoming sales individually or all upcoming sales globally. Here is a quick primer on how to use these services. Let’s start by putting these services in context.
AE is many things: AE Monthly, The Americana Exchange Database [AED], Books for Sale, Auctions and Advanced Services. The Upcoming Auctions link on the brown toolbar is one of these primary links. Selecting Upcoming Auctions opens its Module. To the left of the Auctions Page is a calendar and to the right the most recently posted Auction reports. Toward the top of the page is a Search for keywords here field. With upcoming auctions selected this becomes a global search of all documented upcoming lots.
Searching for items of interest. When you select Upcoming Auctions it sets the database search to Upcoming Auctions in the foreground. Search for any terms or feature in the keyword or advanced search. These searches look at every word in all upcoming lots together. A typical search takes a small fraction of a second if you have a good Internet connection. Search results are displayed in preliminary form and every individual item description links to its full lot description. Each search simultaneously searches two other databases; Books for Sale and the Americana Exchange Database of 3.2 million records. If there are results in these databases we’ll tell you how many. Selecting the Books for Sale link will bring these search results into view. The same is true if you then select the AED link but to view these results you need to be logged in.
Searching individual auctions upcoming and recently concluded. The auction calendar has the dates in brown or orange. The orange dates have no posted auctions. The brown dates do. Clicking on any date opens the schedule of sales for that day. For each sale, for which lots are posted the sale number is a live link to the entire sale. If the sale results have also been posted there is a blue Auction Report link in the upper right corner. The auction report provides a condensed report of the sale. For each posted sale the preliminary view is set to 25 lots. A link is provided to view up to 100 lots per page.
If you select an auction in the upcoming calendar you can review all upcoming lots or if after the sale all priced lots. In all cases the full description is provided. If you click into any description you then have the ability to move forward or back within a sale using the next and back buttons.
Links are provided in the upper right corner to print descriptions, remember and email the lot. The remember feature of course only works if you are signed in but no paid membership is required.
Clicking on the month of the calendar, for example July 2011, opens the entire month.
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Finding the auctions on AE
- By Bruce McKinney
Searching the upcoming auctions
On the right side of the auctions page are the 25 most recently posted auction reports. Selecting next and back move you through these results. The recent auction reports are shown in their brief form. Selecting Click here to View Top Ten Lots by Sale Price opens into a more detailed report including the ten most expensive lots in each sale. For both the condensed and complete report forms there are forward and back buttons to scroll through the sales. For all sales that have been reported there are links in the calendar to the complete results including unsold lots.
Just to the right of all auction pages are quick links to
Auction Home
Auction Calendar
Auction House List
Sign-up for Auction Updates
Recent Auction Updates
Trends in Book Auction Prices
Charts and Analyses
AE Top Auction Report
Each link takes you to one of the features or indexes within the section.
We publish both AE Monthly and Weekly Auction Reports. One of the links is Sign-up for Auction Updates. These reports are emailed Sunday evenings at 9:00 pm PST, include all reported auctions for the past seven days and list all upcoming auctions for the next seven days.
Almost all of these features are free. To receive the weekly reports you must provide a brief amount of information. To view the annual AE Top Auction Reports covering sales for the past decade a paid membership at any level is required.
If you have questions you can always ask. By phone reach us at 877.323.7273. By email click here.
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