Dear Mr Savioli
We are dismayed that you have decided to re-post your negative Google Review on another platform: as we stated in our original response, the accusation that we arranged to sell your book for a fixed price with a dealer, and closed the bidding prematurely in order to exclude other bidders, is completely erroneous and we insist that you issue a retraction.
In line with government regulations, no members of the public have attended our auctions since March, so there is no foundation to your perception ‘from the face of the auctioneer looking at someone in the saleroom that he had an agreement with someone within the public’.
As auctioneers working on a commission basis it is in our interest to achieve the highest price possible for each lot; we have no conceivable commercial interest in arranging covert deals with the trade of the kind that you suppose.
We understand that the book in question is your copy of Playfair’s Fishes of Zanzibar (1866), which was lot 108 in our sale on 7 October 2020 (Printed Books, Maps & Documents). Before the sale you agreed our estimate of £3,000 to £5,000, with the reserve set at the lower estimate of £3,000, the maximum permissible in law: it is illegal for auctioneers to set reserves above the lower estimate. You received a pre-sale statement by e-mail confirming this estimate, and were free to request at any point that the estimate be amended or the lot withdrawn entirely.
The sale catalogue was available online and in hard copy three weeks before the sale, and we took the extra step of including your book in our advertisements in the Antiques Trade Gazette and on the Rare Book Hub website.
On the day of the sale the book sold for £3,000 to an online bidder; our records show that there was no other interest in the form of commission or telephone bids.
You note that the book is now for sale ‘for 4 times the hammer price in one of the European rare book shops’. This bookseller evidently acquired the book on the open market after our sale, presumably from the original purchaser, who is also based in mainland Europe, not the UK as you indicate.
You appear to be upset by the difference between the auction price and the speculative retail price assigned by third party. This is, however, no justification for your assertion that ‘they obviously have their links with rare bookstores and professional dealers with private deals that are not good for the seller … They have a dodgy way of dealing with collectors’.
In light of your admission that you have no evidence for any malpractice, your assertion is baseless and defamatory. Please be aware that unless it is retracted as requested we will have no option but to seek legal advice.
Dominic Winter Auctioneers Ltd
