TEXT C Auctions are public sales
of goods, conducted by an officially approved auctioneer. He asks the crowd
assembled in the auction-room to make offers, or "bid", for the various items on
sale. He encourages buyers to bid higher figures, and finally names the highest
bidder as the buyer of the goods. This is called "knocking down" the goods, for
the bidding ends when the auctioneer bangs a small hammer on a table at which he
stands. An auction is usually advertised beforehand with full
particulars of the articles to be sold and where and when they can be viewed by
prospective buyers. If the advertisement cannot give full details, catalogues
are printed, and each group of goods to be sold together, called a "lot", is
usually given a number. The auctioneer need not begin with Lot 1 and continue in
numerical order; he may wait until he registers the fact that certain dealers
are in the room and then produce the lots they are likely to be interested in.
The auctioneer’s services are paid for in the form of a percentage of the price
the goods are sold for. The auctioneer there- fore has a direct interest in
pushing up the bidding as high as possible. The auctioneer must
know fairly accurately the current market values of the goods he is selling, and
he should be acquainted with regular buyers of such goods. He will not waste
time by starting the bidding too low. He will also play on the rivalries among
his buyers and succeed in getting a high price by encouraging two business
competitors to bid against each other. It is largely on his advice that a seller
will fix a "reserve" price, that is, a price below which the goods cannot be
sold. Even the best auctioneers, however, find it difficult to stop a
"knock-out’, whereby dealers illegally arrange beforehand not to bid against
each other, but nominate one of themselves as the only bidder, in the hope of
buying goods at extremely low prices. If such a "knock-out’ comes off, the real
auction takes place privately afterwards among the dealers. At an auction, a bidder may get an item at a low price if he______.
A．beats others in the bidding B．promises to sell the item again later C．can fix a "reserve" price D．reaches some agreement beforehand with other prospective buyers