Hand copies and protocol catalogues

Auction catalogues, as well as sales and stock catalogues, are often annotated. These annotations include handwritten notes on buyers or hammer prices that auction visitors have recorded in their copy of the auction catalogue during or after the auction. However, the information on buyers and prices obtained in this way is usually incomplete and not always reliable due to the individual interest of the person making the annotations in certain objects or groups of objects.

In contrast to these ‘random’ or selectively and partially annotated catalogues, the hand copies and protocol catalogues are editions of the auction catalogue that were annotated by auction house employees for internal use. Usually before an auction they noted in the hand copies who had consigned the objects to be auctioned, what minimum price should be achieved, and who had submitted a written bid (bidding order) for an object prior to the auction. In addition, the hand copies often contain detailed lists of consignors and clients, further information on the provenance of the objects, or even auction tactics. During the auction, the hammer prices and the names of the people who bought an item were noted, or – if the agreed minimum price was not reached – the highest bid at which an item was ‘returned’.

While hand copies therefore contain more information about the course of an auction, all the participants and the various price categories, auction catalogues primarily document the results of an auction. They usually include the reserve and hammer prices and the names of the buyers. Both versions often contain information about items offered outside the catalogue, which were either added to the catalogue by hand or recorded in lists. This information is all the more relevant as it is only available in the hand copies or protocol catalogues. There were therefore several annotated copies of an auction, each serving different purposes.