FORUM

In Australia (and probably in England) selling by sealed bid is not an auction it is a tender.
In Australia a gold coin is not (now) made of gold, it is made of aluminium bronze.
If an auctioneer tells you a viola is worth $45 million during advertising selling it, they are conning you.

This was a spring sale (whoops I should lie "auction"), and as spring ended three weeks ago and there is no further news, the free advertising due to the inflated price tag seems to have led nowhere.

Sorry about that. I wonder what the auctioneer's commission would have been ? 25% ? Buyer's premium ???

Every hand-made musical instrument from a master craftsman is a one-off. That there may be only 10 Stradivari violas should not in itself make them worth more than violins. There is less demand for violas and on acoustics a viola is an inferior instrument to a violin or a cello.

I have a technical question. In terms of this being falsely described as an auction, if three people bid $45 million, $60 million, and $100 million, how does the bidding work - is the sale price $66 million (assuming 10% increments) or is the sale price $100 million? I guess I'll never know.

Second technical question, what if two or more or all sealed bids are the same ?