The Dynamics of Auction
Social Interaction and the Sale of Fine Art and Antiques

Addresses how social interaction forms the foundation to sale of art and antiques worth many billions of pounds each year.

Christian Heath (Author)

9780521767408, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 12 November 2012

260 pages, 133 b/w illus.
23.5 x 15.5 x 1.5 cm, 0.48 kg

'… Christian Heath has written a wonderfully engaging and detailed account of how auctions are practically accomplished. The book provides a methodologically sophisticated investigation of a financially significant business activity. In so doing it offers an exemplary case study of social interaction in a workplace setting.' Tom Horlick-Jones, Symbolic Interaction

Each year art and antiques worth many billions of pounds are sold at auction. These auctions consist of numerous, intense episodes of social interaction through which the price of goods rapidly escalates until sold on the strike of a hammer. In this book, Christian Heath examines the fine details of interaction that arises at auctions, the talk and visible conduct of the participants and their use of various tools and technologies. He explores how auctioneers, buyers and their representatives are able to transact the sale of diversely priced goods in just seconds. Heath addresses how order, trust and competition are established at auctions and demonstrates how an economic institution of some global importance is founded upon embodied action and interaction. The analysis is based on video recordings of sales of art and antiques gathered within a range of national and international auction houses in Europe and the United States.

Preface
1. Auctions: institutional form and interactional organisation
2. The orders of bidding
3. Trust and the integrity of bids
4. Establishing competition: creating an impression of demand
5. Bidding and the pursuit of bids
6. Remote presence and on-line participation
7. On the strike of the hammer
8. Embodied interaction and the order of markets
Appendix I. Glossary of terms
Appendix II. Transcription notation
References.

Subject Areas: Antiques & collectables [WC], Social research & statistics [JHBC], Social interaction [JFFP], Art: financial aspects [ABQ]