Advice to Buyers

A buyer is not deceived by a description. He is deceived by the sentence he supplies himself, between two of ours.
— Perpetua Lutt, Chief Appraiser, in the like sheet of 1631

Printed at the charge of this house · Given with every made-up copy · Not part of the Conditions of Sale and not to be read as varying them

This sheet is printed because a buyer who does not know the procedure of the room costs the house candle, and candle is the one thing in this hall that cannot be bought back. It is addressed to those who have not bought here before: to executors, to buyers from up the coast, to gentlemen who have been told that an auction is a contest of nerve. An auction is a contest of arithmetic conducted at the speed of a burning candle. The nerve is only what a buyer needs in order to go on doing arithmetic while two hundred people watch him do it.

The prudent buyer comes to the gallery on all three days of view and not on the third alone. He brings a glass, a rule, and a pencil, and he writes in his catalogue, which is his own property and is corrected by nobody in this house. He does not lift. The porters will refuse him politely and fetch a second porter, and that is not courtesy but the sixth clause of the house's bond with the Waterbailiff.

Above all he reckons in three sums and not one: the price at which he will let the hammer fall, the premium of one stiver in the mark upon it, and the cost of getting the thing out of Rope Street into his own house. The third is always forgotten and is frequently the largest. A buyer who has spent his last mark at the pay table owns a heavy object in a hall that charges six stivers a day to keep it, and he will find that the house's arithmetic continues whether or not his does.

The Clerk's Scale

The clerk of the sale room grades every question put to this house by how hard it is to answer, as the sworn weighers grade a bloom. He uses five numbers, and they are used throughout this sheet.

Ten — what any dealer sees at a glance. Twelve — what a dealer in that class of goods sees. Fifteen — what a man of the trade sees with a glass, good light, and time to use both. Seventeen — what was known in the maker's own shop. Twenty — what is known to the person who did it and to nobody else living.

The clerk will say, without charge, which of the five a buyer's question is. He will not answer the question.

The Auction as It Is Conducted

The doors open at eight and the room fills before ten: dealers at the back and along the left wall, private buyers in the middle, agents wherever they can see the rostrum and be seen from it. The senior partner's chair stands at the end of the pay table and is usually empty. At ten the crier comes up, and what he says he says every morning in the same words, because the ordinance requires that the room be told where it is.

"Ladies and gentlemen. The house is Corvisser and Lutt, of Rope Street. The sale is the collection of the late Meinhard Quist, of the Kolkgracht, by order of the Court of Wards. This is the first of four days. The candles are sealed by the Chamber, and the hammer falls at the notch and not at my pleasure. No bid is taken from any person not entered in the book. The premium is one stiver in the mark, at the table, with the price.

"Lot one is on the table. It is a tide-reckoner in brass, it is described at page one, and I shall not read it to you.

"Who says forty marks."

A Lot, from the Call to the Hammer

The call. Number and title, nothing else. A question is made by an open palm; the crier says aloud that it is a question and not a bid, and the candle burns while he answers it. The third question upon one lot is answered after the hammer.
The opening. The house opens at half the lower estimate and never states a reserve. If no hand comes up before the notch, the crier's hand goes flat and the lot goes back to the room, to be offered again before the last candle of the fourth day.
The candle. One sealed candle burns one notch, about the time a clerk takes to read a page aloud. Reckon it the unit of the sale. In one candle a bidder does one thing: bids at the advance, bids at two advances, passes, or spends the candle on something that is not a bid. He does not bid and also do something else.
The advance. A twentieth of the standing bid, rounded up to the whole mark. Less is not heard. More is heard and entered.
Fresh candles. While a bid comes in before the notch, a fresh candle is lit and the lot runs on. Most lots are down in one candle. A contested lot runs four to eight. Eleven is the longest this house has kept a lot open, in 1628, over a pair of andirons that fetched nine marks.
The hammer. A candle burning to the notch with no new bid ends the lot at the standing bid, and the number is called and written before the next lot is set down. Risk passes at that moment and not at the moment of carrying, which buyers of glass are asked to remember.
The table. Price and premium in coin, receipted under wax; foreign coin at the Weighhouse rate of that morning. What is unpaid at the close of the fourth day is offered again, and two marks charged for reinstatement.

The Advance and the Premium, Ready Reckoned

Standing bid	Least advance	Premium	After fourteen advances
20 marks	1	1	40 marks
60 marks	3	3	119 marks
100 marks	5	5	198 marks
240 marks	12	12	475 marks
400 marks	20	20	792 marks
900 marks	45	45	1,782 marks
1,200 marks	60	60	2,376 marks
4,000 marks	200	200	7,920 marks

The least advance and the premium are the same fraction, which buyers find easy to reckon and find expensive. Fourteen advances double a price. A buyer who meant to have a thing at three hundred and finds himself at five hundred and ninety has not been robbed; he has raised his hand fourteen times in twenty minutes, and every one of those times was his.

The written limit. This house has compared the day-books of eleven sales. A buyer who writes his limit in the margin before the lot is called exceeds it by about a fifth; a buyer who carries it in his head exceeds it by half. A limit written before the call answers the room with advantage, and answers at the buyer's figure. A limit that exists only in the head answers at disadvantage, and answers whatever the room asks.

What May Be Done in a Candle Instead of Bidding

Reading the ceiling. Wisdom (Insight) at fifteen, or against the other's Charisma (Deception) where he guards himself: whether the man opposite can afford no further advance, one, or several. Not whose money it is.
The feint. An advance he cannot pay, to draw the other one step higher: Deception against the other's Insight. Won, the other advances and the feinter passes the next candle with his purse whole. Lost, the other passes and the hammer falls to the feinter, who is at the table with a sum he has not got: the lot reoffered, two marks charged, and his name where the cashier and the night clerk read it.
The word between candles. Persuasion at fifteen; at twelve where the buyer can name a consideration the other actually wants; at eighteen with a stranger who has travelled for the lot. The consideration is written in a margin and is binding by the custom of the trade and by nothing else whatever.
The lean. Intimidation at fifteen, at disadvantage while an officer of the city stands at the back, which the Waterbailiff does on the second day. Won, the other passes one candle. Lost, the crier names the leaner from the rostrum; on a second warning the house declines his paddle for the day and returns his deposit.
The ready coin. Two fingers across the paddle's rim: two advances in one candle, no check, no words. It breaks a bidder reckoning in single steps and tells the room his ceiling is nowhere near.
Reading the house. Insight at seventeen, once per lot: whether a reserve stands above the present bidding. It is the most valuable question in the room and the house answers it in no other way.

Equal Bids, and How a Duel Ends

Where two bids come in on the same breath, the crier takes the hand he saw first and says so. Where he did not see, he asks both to advance and lights a fresh candle. Where both decline, the lot goes to the bidder whose name stands first in the book of accreditation, which opens on the first day of view; and an agent's principal counts from the hour the principal's name was written, not from the hour the agent walked in. Buyers who mean to bid against a man they know are advised to be entered early. It costs nothing and it has decided four lots in this hall since the count began.

A duel ends in one of three ways, and the prudent buyer knows which by the fourth candle. By money: one passes a whole candle and the hammer falls. By coin that is not there: the winner cannot pay, and the thing comes back before the last candle of the fourth day at about two-thirds of the first price, offered again without any statement that it is the same thing. By the reserve: the crier's hand goes flat with two people still bidding and neither of them has it. This happens, buyers find it very hard to believe, and no explanation is given from the rostrum.

Bidding Complications

d12	What happens while the lot is open
1	A short candle, lit at the last lot. Each bidder declares once, in the order of the book, and the hammer falls. No feints, no words, no leaning.
2	The wrong lot on the table. The head porter matched the ticket by shape — a six for a nine, a one for a seven. Said before the hammer, a buyer is thanked; said after, he has bought the number.
3	Rain on the lead glass. Perception at thirteen to be sure of the standing bid; failing it, a bidder advances against himself, and it stands.
4	A question of title, asked aloud by an officer. The candle burns while it is answered, and the answer is law whether or not it is true. A lot answered against fetches a third less for the rest of its life.
5	A claim entered from the floor. The hammer falls, but the thing is held at the pay table eight days while the Court is written to. The buyer goes home with a receipt.
6	A paddle raised for a principal not yet named at the book. That bid is void and every advance above it with it. The lot begins again at the last good bid.
7	A dealer runs the pace up and stops dead. Insight at thirteen, or a bidder has advanced one step past what he meant.
8	The noon bell. The lot is held to the afternoon; a seat is kept only by a paddle laid face down. Of ten who go out for money, three come back with it.
9	The candle gutters in the fog. The notch cannot be read and the crier keeps the lot open at his own judgement. Persuasion at twelve ends it at once, and puts the objector at disadvantage with everyone in the hall until the last candle.
10	A withdrawn lot falls due in the order. The reason is read from the rostrum in its place and the reading takes a candle. Money set aside for that number is loose, and the next lot feels it.
11	The cashier is behind and everything stops. A word between candles is at twelve, and the night clerk is at the end of the pay table with the book, hearing it.
12	Two bidders are bidding against each other and not for the lot. Insight at fifteen to see it. Both are past their sums and the winner defaults. Note the number and keep the money for the fourth day.

The Room Turns

d8	How the room goes, for the rest of the lot or the morning
1	The room has a favourite. Every advance is made at two advances, by custom and not by ordinance, and the lot closes half again above what the estimate warranted.
2	The room has heard something, true or otherwise. No hand goes above the lower estimate and the reserve is not reached. The whisper is worth more than the lot to whoever started it.
3	The room turns to a person. One bidder is watched instead of the lot: his social checks in the hall are at disadvantage until the noon bell, and each advance draws one more from somebody who will not be seen outbid by him.
4	The room decides the house is at something. Bids come slowly, candles double, the house's attempts to move the room are at disadvantage. The best half-hour of any sale for a buyer with coin.
5	The room goes quiet for a claimant. Bidding stops where it stands, and the next three lots go for what nobody wishes to be seen paying, which is little.
6	The room is amused. Persuasion in the hall is at ten for the next lot, and everyone has advantage on Insight against the man who was laughed at, who has stopped guarding his face.
7	The room smells private money. The dealers fold their arms and watch a gentleman bid. This lot goes cheap; everything after it goes dear.
8	The fog comes in at the third window. Numbers are called twice and written once and the porters chalk their barrows. The count at eleven will read one above the book, and anybody who wants a thing gone out of the record has a quarter of an hour in which to want it.

[in red ink] The reserve at this house is nine-tenths of the lower estimate and has been since 1631, and any dealer at the back wall will tell you so for a glass of beer. It is nine-tenths except on the lots the house must have sold, where it is nothing at all, and you may know those by the crier going on looking at the room after the notch. Read again where this sheet says the house never states a reserve. It does not state it; it stands under the bidding all morning like a man under a table. C.O.

Of Looking at a Thing, and of Looking at Its Paper

On a foggy morning the light through the lead glass comes down grey and even, and the porters call it good light because nothing shines in it. Every ground, every file-stroke, every soldered seam can be seen in that light by a person who is looking. A buyer who comes on the third day at four o'clock, in a hurry, without a glass, has bought what the label says.

The house warrants two things and no third: that the lot delivered is the lot described, and that the description records what the chief appraiser believed at the hour of writing it, with the thing in her hands and a glass upon it. The maker, the date, the shop, the hand, the chain of ownership, the account of what the thing has done — none of these is warranted, and a buyer who wishes to know them must find them out in the three days he is given.

What a Buyer May Ask in the Gallery

The question	What answers it	What a good answer gives	What it does not give
Is it as old as the paper says?	History at thirteen; the trade's tools at twelve	The century, usually the city, often the workshop custom	Whether this thing is the thing the paper is about
Is it the maker's own work?	The trade's tools at seventeen, with a glass and an hour	The shop, often the hand, by the file-strokes and the cut of the springs	Whether the mark was struck in that shop or added by somebody who owned a punch
Is it one thing or two married?	Investigation at fifteen, at the joint, the solder, the pin	That the parts are of two ages, cities, or trades	Which of the two the provenance was written for. It is generally the newer.
Has it been mended?	Perception at twelve	The repair, and what took the strain	Why it needed mending, which is the interesting question
Does it do anything?	Arcana at fifteen; detect magic; or identify, which wants a pearl of fifty marks and is why the pledge-houses are asked for pearls in the week of a sale	That it does something, and usually what	Where and when it does it: over water, in fog, in a house of mourning, at a death, in this city only
Is the paper honest?	Attest; or Investigation at fifteen with calligrapher's supplies	Whether one hand wrote and sealed it, and whether it has been altered since	Whether what is written on it is so. A paper written and sealed at one sitting by one honest liar passes.
Is the paper of its claimed date?	Investigation at fifteen: mill-mark, chain-lines, thread, the sewing of the gathering	The earliest year the sheet itself can be	Who put the sheet where it now is, and when
Who has wanted it?	The ritual Provenance, ten minutes, in the yard and not in the gallery	The last three hands that wanted to own it, and where they stood	The hands that merely held or carried it, and everything before the three
Is the man across the table lying?	Insight against his Deception	Whether he believes what he says	Whether it is true. A dealer deceived by his own paper answers honestly and answers wrong, and the check confirms him.
What is it worth?	The clerk, free; or Persuasion at twelve with any dealer at the left wall	The range the room will pay, which is what worth means here	The reserve

The line before the last is the whole trade in a sentence. A buyer who has satisfied himself of the paper has satisfied himself of the paper. Insight is a skill for the person across the table and not for the object on it. The object does not lie. It has been written about, by people with reasons, and the writing has been bound, sewn, copied fair and carried forward from list to list until it is older than anybody who could contradict it. Where a check succeeds and the answer is false, it is almost never the thing that lied.

Marks of a Made Provenance

d10	The tell, and what it costs to find
1	A chain in which every step is a purchase and no step a death. Real chains are mostly deaths and debts. Investigation at twelve.
2	A gathering sewn into a bound volume, of a paper the mill did not make until years after the binding. Fifteen; twenty where the thread came out of the same book.
3	A label in the hand of the man who priced the thing, not the man who owned it. Perception at twelve; compare label with ticket.
4	A year exactly right for the vendor's story and one month wrong for the office's copy. Two marks and a morning.
5	A name that occurs once in the world and only in this chain. Ask three dealers who he was; the third laughs.
6	A receipt in the hand of the payer. Investigation at thirteen, comparing the descenders.
7	An office named as a former holder, with no order of record for the thing's leaving. The offices keep their orders and answer in eight days.
8	Wax that took its impression from a cast and not a matrix: a fine burr at the rim where the mould parted. Perception at fifteen with a glass. It is the only difference and it is enough.
9	A chain that is complete. Nothing is complete. No check will help; the completeness is the tell.
10	A thing whose paper is offered in the same sale as the thing. Both are for sale, and the buyer of one may be asked for the other at a price set by whoever bought first.

Of the making of such papers the house says this much. A hand may be counterfeited with a forgery kit and patience, and the counterfeit stands at whatever number the counterfeiter reached in the making; an examiner must beat that number with Investigation to break it. There is besides an illusion sold in this city that lets a writer's own hand appear for an hour as the hand of another — but only of another whose writing the writer has seen, which is a narrower door than it sounds, and which is why forged papers here are so often in the hand of somebody's late clerk. There is a second illusion, cheaper, that makes a broken seal, lock or band appear and feel whole for eight hours; a buyer shown an unbroken seal at four in the afternoon should ask what that seal looked like at eight in the morning.

The penalties are not the reason to leave it alone. The Chamber fines the value twice over and takes the trade, and a false paper lodged with the Court of Wards goes to the commissioners, who have the pillory at the Staple Quay and use it. The reason to leave it alone is commercial: the trade will not touch a genuine thing that has once been shown false paper, and such a thing fetches a fifth of its worth thereafter. A bad paper on a false object costs a buyer money. A good paper on a genuine object is far more dangerous, because nobody ever looks again.

[in red ink] The scale in the box is honest and the sheet under it is not. It tells you to look at the joint and the solder, which is right, and then it tells you that Insight is for the man across the table, which is a way of saying you may not use it upon this house. Use it upon this house. The material has never lied to me and the people in this room have lied to me for fifteen years. C.O. (Lowmonth 1637)

[in pencil] ask the clerk which three lots will not be tried in the yard. he will not say. then count the lots in this book that are not to be opened. the two counts are not the same count.

Of Lots Under Claim, Embargo, Lien and Seizure

Several lots in this sale carry more paper than substance. A buyer who understands the five words below will understand why a thing may be described at length and then not offered at all.

A claim is a person saying the thing is theirs. It is entered with the clerk or from the floor and referred to the Court of Wards. The lot is still offered, and the description says so.
An embargo is the Court saying the thing may pass to nobody until it decides. The lot is not sold; bids are void and deposits returned at the table without deduction.
A lien is a charge on the thing itself. Whoever carries a thing under a lien out of the door has his Speed halved and cannot take the Dash action, until the named sum is paid or the thing goes back inside.
A seizure is the Waterbailiff saying the thing came off a vessel. A buyer taking such a lot out of the city gets his own stamp at the shed: one mark and a morning. Without it the thing is taken at the gate and sold a second time, and that sale is also lawful.
A reversion is a thing left to somebody for their life only, falling back to another house at their death. It is the quietest encumbrance in the trade, because nothing appears on the ticket and the description says only that the lot has been offered on previous occasions, with the number and no other particular.

Claims Entered Against This Sale, and What Follows the Hammer

Entered by	Upon what paper	The house's answer	After the hammer
Ilsabet Vantoc, daughter of a pledge-broker whose house was dissolved	Folios of a pledge-book; a seizure list of 1619; a deed of gift never perfected. Nine lots named.	That a forfeit pledge passes to the pledge-house, and that a customs sale gives good title however the seizure was got	Each lot offered without prejudice. Where the Court refers, the money lies at the pay table eight days and the buyer goes home with a receipt.
Barbara Wett, great-granddaughter of the maker of one of the lots	A descent, and a life interest under a will. Five lots named.	That the interest determined at the death of the holder, and that the will is with the Court	The buyer takes the thing and the suit with it. The house does not defend it and does not share the costs.
The Staple Bank of Velhagen, by its agent	A bill of encumbrance, printed in this catalogue at its own number	That the charge lies upon the account and not upon the goods. The bank's agent has not agreed.	The buyer takes the thing. The money goes where the bill says, and he never learns where that was.
The Beguinage of St. Bavo, by its mistress	A request, not a paper. Certain reliquaries.	That it is a request, and the house has said so kindly and in writing	Nothing. The buyer will be asked for it once a year, politely, in person, for as long as he keeps it.
Servants of the household	Wages, four quarters, entered with the Court. No lot named.	That the claim lies against money and not goods	Nothing happens to any thing. The account rendered after the fourth day is short by the amount, and the commission pays it.
The office of the Waterbailiff	A seizure licence, lodged with the sale	Nothing to answer; the licence is the answer	The lot passes. The stamp does not. Get it before the fourth day; the shed is not open on the fifth.
The Court of Wards, of its own motion	An embargo, layable at any hour to the last candle of the fourth day	Nothing to answer	No sale. A buyer who has paid is paid back at the table in the coin he brought, less nothing.

Where a buyer wants a claimed thing he has five courses, and four are cheaper than a suit.

Buy the claim. A claimant with a good paper and no money will often part with it for the arrears named in it, commonly 1d4 × 50 marks. Persuasion at thirteen where the claim is about money; at seventeen where it is about a father, a name, or a grave, in which case no reasonable offer will do and an unreasonable one may.
Pay the lien. The named sum at the pay table, receipted under wax. The thing is light again at the threshold, and the receipt is worth keeping longer than a buyer expects.
Get the clearance. The Court's clerk writes what he is told and lodges it: two marks and eight days, or Persuasion at twelve and the same afternoon. What one person has dictated another may dictate over.
Wait for the default. Claimed lots fail at the table often, and what fails is offered again before the last candle of the fourth day at about two-thirds.
Go to the hearing. The commissioners keep a clerk able to hold a room to the truth for ten minutes together, and use him at every hearing without announcing it. The prudent claimant, and the prudent buyer, answer narrowly.

Return. No lot is returnable on the ground of its history. A lot brought back for any cause is a default under the sixth rule: offered again, two marks charged, premium not returned. This house is residual beneficiary of the estate it sells, so a lot returned twice becomes the property of the house, and buyers may draw their own conclusion about how hard the house works to prevent a return.

Custody. A paid lot lies in the hall three days without charge and thereafter at six stivers the day. Anything in the hall at eleven at night is counted with the hall and entered in the book of the night inventory, and a thing so entered is signed out by two men. On a foggy night the count has been known to read above the book, in which case it is made again and both counts entered, and the buyer who comes at eight for his crate waits for the second man. Buyers who would rather their property were not written in this house's book are advised to remove it before the last candle.

Resale and execution. A buyer may sell on within the eight days and the house will re-ticket for one mark; the second buyer takes the first buyer's paper, risk and claim, and no second name is printed. A charge is executed against the account and not the person, which is a comfort to nobody carrying a crate. The Waterbailiff has six customs men and may declare a thing seized where it stands. A bank's lien is quieter: the thing becomes reluctant, and the direction in which it is least reluctant is back the way it came.

[in red ink] Her folios prove a loan and do not prove a theft, and any man who has kept a pledge-book will tell you the difference in one breath: a forfeit is entered on the day it forfeits and a theft is entered on no day at all. She has come to the wrong hall with the right grievance and cannot pay for her own paper. C.O.

[in pencil] she names nine lots. the red ink answers eight.

Sheets from the Clerk's Desk

What follows is printed at the request of buyers who saw the papers on the desk during the days of view and asked what they were. They are the examination sheets of the sale room, kept in the drawer under the pay table: the clerk casts the dice, the apprentice is given a thing that does not exist and made to write it up in the house's order, and his sheet is marked. They are numbered for the dice after the manner of the porters' list on the cupboard door, that being how everything in this hall is numbered which must be learnt by somebody who would not otherwise read it. The house neither warrants nor recommends their use upon real goods, and knows perfectly well that three dealers in this city use them so.

A Provenance in Five Throws

Where a thing is delivered here with no paper at all, the clerk may not invent one; he may ask five questions in a fixed order and write down five answers or the absence of them. Cast down the row: a former hand, the manner of passing, the interval, the arrears, and the question the paper leaves open. It serves for any object whatever, in this catalogue or out of it, and it is the only sheet in the drawer that has been copied by hand more than once.

d12	The hand before this one	How it passed	How long ago	What is owed on it	What the paper does not answer
1	A widow who kept her husband's forge on and used it in the trade	Bought at a public sale, the bill lodged	Two years; the last hand is alive and in the city	A loan of 2d10 × 10 marks, unredeemed	Where it was between two of its dates
2	A ship's purser; it has been at sea in a locked chest	Bought privately; the vendor's account is not before us	Three years; two people saw the handing over	Carriage of 1d6 × 10 marks; a carter's family remembers three generations	Who paid the carriage, it being in neither book
3	A sworn weigher; there is a stamp on it somewhere	Inherited by descent, which is to say somebody died	Five years; one of the two has left the city	A commission never rendered, one part in ten of an old sale	Why the fitted case has one bed more than contents
4	An executioner, and after him his daughter, who sold all within the year	Taken in part discharge of an account for carriage or physic	Eight years; the office has moved rooms since	The weighers' fee, 1d6 marks; the stamp is the wrong stamp	Which of the two dates is the date the office kept
5	A pledge-broker, who never owned it and kept it eleven years	Pledged against a loan, forfeit and not redeemed	Eleven years, remembered in the trade for something else	Duty unpaid at the quay; small, and seizure at the gate	Who cut the second key, and who has it now
6	A sacristan with an opinion about where it ought to be now	Seized for arrears at a creditor's suit and sold at the door	Thirteen years; all who signed are dead but the witness, who was a boy	Wages of a servant, four quarters, entered with the Court	Why the earlier list calls it by another name
7	A customs clerk who bought it out of a seizure at a clerk's price	Seized off a vessel and sold at the customs quay under licence	Seventeen years; the office copy has been rebound out of order	A fine of the Chamber, doubled for lateness, now larger than the thing	Who is meant by the initials, which occur three times
8	A whaling master who could not say from whom he had it	Given, the gift never perfected: paper written, thing not handed over	Twenty-one years; the only account is a later list copying an earlier	Nothing, and a receipt to prove it, in the same hand as the bill	Why it was returned by somebody who bid twice for it
9	A gravedigger, given it in place of a fee	Exchanged for another thing, named in neither book	Twenty-six years in one house, which is why it is sound	A loan of 2d10 × 10 marks; the broker's heirs say they have the book	What was in the empty place, and whether it went before the inventory
10	A notary, on a shelf above the wills	Found. No vendor named.	No year given; the ink is older than the hand that wrote it	Carriage, presented at the loading door by a stranger	Why a receipt is in the hand of the person who paid
11	An office of the city, no man named, no order of record	Removed from an office, no order for the removal being of record	Nine years; the year is right in one book and wrong in the other	The weighers' fee, and a stamp that has been struck twice	Who has the matching half, it being one of a pair
12	A copyist employed about it, who was not paid in coin	Received under circumstances which have not been cleared	Four years, and four before that in a place nobody names	Nothing is owed and three people say otherwise	Why an office that keeps every order has no order for this

The boys are marked on the writing up and not on the invention. A sheet passed in Lowmonth of this year, upon five throws and a weighing-beam that does not exist, ran thus.

made for the office of the sworn weighers and stamped at the beam
upon her husband's death, the widow of a sworn weigher, no order of the office being of record for its leaving
1626 · pledged against a loan of 30 marks, the pledge forfeit and not redeemed
thence, at a sale in this city, to a hand not named
thence this house, the weighers' fee of seven marks standing unpaid, and the counterpoise bearing two stamps of which one is not accounted for

The Next Lot

Used when a boy must be given something to describe and the shelves are empty, which is not often. The clerk marks the last column hardest, because a boy who cannot say why a thing has come to auction will describe it as though it were a gift.

d12	What it is	What is reported of it	Condition
1	An instrument of a trade, brass and boxwood, in a fitted case	It counts what is shown to it and keeps the number	A good repair in a place that takes no strain
2	A vessel: a cup, a jug, a case worth more than what is in it	It keeps a name said over it and gives it to the next who asks	A part missing, its bed unworn
3	A garment, dried and pressed, measurements given and no name	It will not stay shut, and is found open with nothing missing	A later addition by a better hand than the original
4	Arms: a blade, a haft, a plate with a mark on the inner face	It is warm in the rain and cold in the sun	Water, to a level line: it stood in it and did not fall in
5	A document in a case of lead, horn, or shagreen	It shows the hour that is past at that place and nothing of the present	A hole filled with the same metal and not the same century
6	A piece of furniture with a lock and no key	It weighs more than its parts, by an amount the Weighhouse recorded twice	A mark re-cut over the ghost of an earlier mark
7	A reliquary, or a thing that was one before it was taken apart	It does its work over open water and is poor on land	The lining replaced, the old one folded and left inside
8	An automaton, wound by the porter at the half-hour and not otherwise	It answers a bell nobody in the building has rung	Sound throughout, which at that age is a question and not an answer
9	A tool of a trade nobody in the room follows any longer	It cannot be copied: ink slides, wax will not take, a drawing comes out wrong at one corner	Rubbed bright where one hand held it and nowhere else
10	A working model of something standing in this city at full size	It is not seen when a room is counted, and the count is otherwise right	Cleaned lately, and cleaned by somebody who knew what to leave
11	A book, interleaved, rebound, one gathering not matching	It comes back to the hand that owned it longest, by whatever road	A seam re-sewn twice, the second time with the wrong thread
12	A thing whose use is not now known, and the earlier list does not say	It is silent where its make should sound, the silence filed in on purpose	Perfect, and lately out of a wrapping that is older than it is

d10	Estimate	d6	Why it comes to auction
1	2–6 marks	1	A death, and the house sealed by the Court of Wards
2	9–14 marks	2	A bankruptcy; the assignees must have money by a date
3	18–26 marks	3	A seizure, and the office has finished with it
4	40–60 marks	4	The family will not keep it in the house and will not say why
5	90–120 marks	5	A bank has a charge upon the owner and chose this thing
6	180–240 marks	6	Nobody knows, and the vendor's account is not before us
7	400–500 marks	—	—
8	700–900 marks	—	—
9	900–1,200 marks	—	—
10	2,400–3,000 marks	—	—

Who Else Is Bidding

This sheet belongs to the crier and not the clerk, and his boy learns it before he learns the numbers. A buyer who knows what the man beside him wants has bought half the lot before the candle is lit. Cast once for each hand he must bid against.

d12	The bidder, and where the money is	How he bids
1	A dealer of the Wolfsgat on his own account; wants the material and the mounts, not the thing. A purse and a chalked note with a ropemaker.	Opens low to set a slow pace, stops dead at two-thirds of the lower estimate. Right about the object, wrong about every person in the room.
2	An agent for a name not printed, holding a paddle of the house. Not his money.	Even advances, no pause, no face. Insight at seventeen learns only that the money is not his, never whose.
3	The family the thing was taken from. 1d4 × 100 marks and a mortgage on a house in a poor street.	Spends all of it on the one lot that matters and nothing on any other; then enters a claim; then waits at the loading door.
4	A house of religion buying back what left it; wants the bone, not the silver. A draft on the alms.	Will not bid against anybody in mourning. Persuasion at thirteen makes it stand off for a gift promised in writing, and it will hold the writer to that for a generation.
5	A physician buying for a patient, believing the report rather more than it warrants. Somebody else's money.	Single advances, apologetically, past the sum he was given; pays the premium from his own purse rather than explain it.
6	A bank's agent protecting a charge. The bank's money.	Bids to the sum charged, not one advance more, and will state the figure aloud if asked, being forbidden to misstate it.
7	A collector who buys by number: he has the lot before and the lot after. Old money, slow.	Bids without once looking at the thing. Persuasion at fifteen trades a number he wants for one he does not, and he keeps that bargain to the letter and no further.
8	A shipmaster who sails on the evening tide. Coin, counted out on the pay table beforehand.	Two advances at once, every candle, and leaves at the noon bell whether he has bought or not.
9	A woman engaged to be somebody else in this room. Paid by the day, half in advance.	Bids what she is signalled. Insight at fifteen against her Deception catches the signal; what it catches is the signaller, and she will not sell his name.
10	A bidder bidding against one person and not for a thing. His own money, and more of it than sense.	Advances every candle without looking at the lot. Both pass their sums; the winner defaults at the table.
11	A bidder upon whom nobody calls, who looks at the rostrum before each advance. Not his own money.	Insight at sixteen catches the look. To bid so on goods one has an interest in breaks the fourth rule: forfeiture and three times the price, falling on the vendor. A buyer who puts it to the clerk in writing takes the lot at the last good bid before the look.
12	A customs man not in his coat. The office's money, and he will not spend it.	Does not bid. When a lot he is watching is knocked down he writes the buyer's number in a book the size of his hand and goes out.

What the House Does Not Mention

Not an examination sheet, but a list the clerk keeps of the twelve things a description most often leaves out, he being the man who must answer for them at the table afterwards. The house observes only that a description which leaves a thing out has said nothing untrue.

d12	What is left out	How it is written instead	How a buyer finds it out
1	A year	"at a sale in this city", where a year would stand, with years printed either side of it	Investigation at twelve against the catalogue itself; then the office copy of the sale bill, two marks
2	A name in a collar, a lining, or under a mount	The measurements and the stains in full, and no name	Perception at thirteen; and since no buyer may lift, Sleight of Hand at fifteen or two stivers for a trial in the yard
3	A death in the chain	"thence, by descent"	Every descent is a death. The ground's book and the Watermen's ledger have the dates, two marks each.
4	That a part is new	"the holder renewed", "the lining modern and of no account"	Nothing to find. The words are there. The buyer supplied "of no account" himself.
5	What it fetched the other times	"offered on six previous occasions", the number and no other particular	Ask. The day-books are the house's and the clerk reads a figure aloud for nothing.
6	That the reserve stands above the estimate	Nothing whatever is written	Insight at seventeen; or the crier's hand going flat with two people still bidding
7	That the vendor is the house	No phrase at all, which in a book of set phrases is itself the tell	Compare the commission entered against the lot with the account rendered after the fourth day: Investigation at fifteen, and a book nobody will hand over
8	That the piece is two pieces married	Each part in its own clause, the clauses not joined	A glass at the joint, at fifteen; then ask which of the two the provenance was written for
9	That there is a second of the thing	"the matrix", "the key", "the plate", where a plain house would write "a"	The definite article is the tell: Investigation at thirteen to notice, and nothing at all to prove
10	That a claim is on its way	Four sentences of description against an estimate of fifteen marks	No check. Length the value does not warrant has a reason, and the reason is generally sitting in the third row.
11	That the office never released it	"no order for its removal being of record"	The phrase is the confession. The office keeps its orders and answers in eight days.
12	That the thing is not to be tried	The catalogue is silent and the clerk declines to discuss it	Count the lots the clerk will not have tried in the yard; then the lots described as not to be opened; compare the counts.

Delivery

A lot leaves this house in one order and no other, and buyers who have arranged matters differently will spend the afternoon on the stairs.

The hammer falls, the number is called, the number is written. Risk is now the buyer's.
Price and premium at the pay table, in coin, receipted under wax. The wax is what the porters look for.
The ticket is stamped, and the buyer carries the ticket and not the lot.
The lot is fetched: from the presentation table at once; from the gallery within the half-hour; from the strongroom not before the next hour, because nothing comes out of the strongroom by one man and the second man is generally counting.
The porters carry it to the loading door and no further. Six stivers for the crane where the crane is needed; it is greased on Sunday, which a buyer arriving late on Saturday should consider.
Beyond the door it is the buyer's carter at the buyer's charge. The house recommends none and receives from none; if a porter recommends one, the buyer may draw his own conclusions about the porter.
Anything leaving the city gets the Waterbailiff's stamp at the shed: one mark and a morning, got by the buyer himself. The house does not get it for him and does not warrant that he will get it.

Packing is at the buyer's charge: wood-wool and tow at two stivers the crate, oiled cloth at three stivers against rain, and the crates are the house's and come back. Nothing leaves the hall after the last candle, for any price, on any day. This house does not insure. There are men at the Staple who will, at a twentieth of the value, and buyers should know that those men have declined to write upon three lots in this sale, and gave no reason.

On the Way Out

d12	What happens between the loading door and the buyer's house
1	The fog at the ropewalks. Two turnings look alike and the carter takes the second. An hour lost, and the barrow passes the door of a man who was outbid this morning and is at his window.
2	The stamp. The customs man wants a stamp on a thing the buyer never knew was seized. One marks and a morning, or the crate lies in the shed among the wet coir, and the shed is not dry.
3	The wet ticket. By the custom of the hall a wet ticket is copied and the wet one burnt. The number is now whatever the porter read, in the porter's hand, with nothing left to compare it against.
4	Two crates at the same hour, numbers alike by shape. Each buyer has the other's. Both tickets are correct and both crates are wrong; the house will exchange them and will not say which of its men matched them.
5	The lien takes hold at the threshold. Speed halved, no Dash, until the sum is paid or the thing goes back inside. It is not heavier. It is less willing in one direction than the other.
6	A boy from the Wolfsgat follows the barrow to the end of the street and turns back. He was not sent to steal. He was sent to see which door.
7	The night count has it. The lot stood one night in the hall and is in the book of the night inventory. It is signed out by two men, and the second does not come on before eight.
8	The claimant at the loading door, a paper in one hand and a cousin who carts. Persuasion or Intimidation at thirteen, or the thing goes back inside for eight days and the buyer keeps the receipt.
9	The crate is opened at the shed for duty. What went in comes out. What is under it belongs to another crate: a wood-wool packed elsewhere, and a ticket with no number in the house's book.
10	The carter's price doubles at the corner, the load being heavier than he was told. The house's weight is right, taken twice, in pounds. His cart is wrong.
11	Rain, hard, off the cut. The oiled cloth is three stivers at the pay table and the pay table has closed. The doors to Rope Street shut at the last candle, and the last candle is now.
12	Nothing goes wrong. The thing is in the buyer's house before dark and set where he meant it to stand. By the third night he will have looked at it for an hour without meaning to, and will not be able to say what he was looking for.

Buyers with questions upon this sheet apply to the clerk of the sale room in the morning. Complaints are made in writing within eight days of the close of the fourth day. After eight days the sale is the record, and the record is what this house will produce, in this city, before any office of it.