The Articles: fair play, fun bidding
How the bidding works aboard Whaleworx
Every piece in the hold is up for auction. Bid what it's worth to you, and you might carry it home for less. Here's the whole game, plain as a ship's log and twice as honest.
- $10Opening bid on most of the catch
- 7 daysThe clock starts at the first bid
- Buy It NowOn priced pieces, until a bid lands
- 3 daysTo pay once you win, or we weigh anchor
Bidding
Every piece shows an opening bid, $10 unless it says otherwise. To bid, tell us the most you would pay (your max). We bid for you, only as much as it takes to keep you in front, the same way eBay's automatic bidding works. Your max stays secret, locked in the captain's sea chest. So you may win for less than your max, and the price never goes above what you set.
Each new bid has to beat the price by one step:
| Current price | Step |
|---|---|
| Under $25 | $1 |
| $25 to $99.99 | $2.50 |
| $100 to $249.99 | $5 |
| $250 to $499.99 | $10 |
| $500 to $999.99 | $25 |
| $1,000 to $2,499.99 | $50 |
| $2,500 and up | $100 |
If two bidders set the same max, the one who bid first wins. Each bidder shows up as a numbered paddle and a sea name of your choosing (Ishmael is taken). Your real name and email stay private.
Reserve prices
Bidding can open as low as $10, but most pieces also carry a reserve: a minimum price we keep secret. The bid box tells you whether it has been met. If bidding ends below the reserve, the piece doesn't sell, nobody pays anything, and nobody goes overboard. We may reach out to the top bidder to see if a deal can still be made.
The clock
A piece with no bids has no clock. The first bid starts a 7-day countdown. When it hits zero, the highest bidder wins.
No sniping, no surfacing at the last second. If a bid lands in the last 5 minutes, the clock resets to 5 minutes, so nobody gets shut out by a last-second move. That can repeat, but not forever. Times are Chicago time, the only time that matters, as any Bears fan will tell you.
We may also end an auction early at our discretion, for example if a piece is damaged or gets sold another way.
Buy It Now
Some pieces carry a regular price. While nobody has bid, you can skip the auction and buy it right away. The first bid takes Buy It Now off the table for good, and the auction runs from there.
Bids are binding
A bid is a promise to buy, and a sailor's word is bond. Please only bid if you mean it. Typo? Email us within an hour of bidding, as long as more than 12 hours remain on the clock, and we'll remove it. After that it stands.
If you win
You'll get an email within minutes with the final price and a secure link to pay. You have 3 days to pay. Pickup is at our South Loop loading dock, by appointment. Want it shipped across the seven seas (or to Indiana)? Tell us and we'll quote shipping before you pay. Big or fragile pieces may be pickup only.
If the payment doesn't arrive in time, we may cancel the sale and offer the piece to another bidder or relist it. Winners who repeatedly don't pay get left adrift, which is to say blocked from bidding.
About the pieces
Everything here is one of one, found around Chicago and the towns nearby, and sold as found. Wear, patina, barnacles and quirks are part of the deal. We photograph and describe each piece as carefully as we can. If something arrives not as described, tell us within 3 days and we'll make it right.
Keeping it fair
No shill bidding, no mutiny aboard this vessel: no bidding on your own pieces, and no bidding up a friend's. No using more than one identity to bid on the same piece. To keep the room fair, each bidder can place up to 5 bids every 5 minutes. We can remove bids, cancel bids or block bidders who break these rules. We only use your email to run the auction. We don't sell it, trade it or drop it in the lake.
Questions?
Tap Ask the Deckhand in the corner of any page, or reach out through the contact page. We're happy to explain anything here, twice if there is coffee, three times if there is a Polish.
