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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Burton Strauss III, post: 2477255, member: 59677&quot;]I don&#039;t get it either...</p><p><br /></p><p>The auction company makes the most money by selling items at auction (and collecting buyers and sellers premiums), not by purchasing items for their own account for some future sales.</p><p><br /></p><p>Presumably all of the likely known bidders are invited as that maximizes the bids. Of course that misses the unknown bidder (new collector with $ to burn, etc.)</p><p><br /></p><p>At a public auction, the buyers can hire agents (or have the auction house do it) to bid on their behalf w/o disclosing their identity. The identity of the consigner can similarly be hidden &quot;from the collection of a lady&quot; is how the brits usually do it.</p><p><br /></p><p>Thus the only benefit I can see is that with a private auction the unwashed (public) don&#039;t see the data. So nobody knows that the last 1804 dollar sold for $5m not $8m. Which assumes that nobody talks.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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