I’m always surprised when an item comes up for auction and the bidding goes through the roof two weeks before the closing date. Maybe it’s a contest of egos, like T. rexes (their brains the size of walnuts) fighting over a piece of carrion, with the winner roaring in triumph as the losers stomp away.

Rational bidders, however, want to commit the least amount of money to winning an auction, and that means exercising self-restraint. So it makes sense not to start a bidding war. Mindless counterbidding only amps up the competition, like throwing chum to sharks. Better to let someone else have the high bid for as long as possible: they may become complacent or forget about the auction altogether, giving you the chance to win with a last-minute “stealth” bid. Or you yourself may have second thoughts about how high to go—or even whether to bid. By waiting, you keep your options open.

My advice is: Apart from eBay—where an early bid (again, keep it low) should prevent a seller from considering “Buy It Now” offers—don’t bid in an online auction until the last possible moment.

But not all auctions are online only: Many auction houses, large and small—even those that use online bidding platforms like LiveAuctioneers and Invaluable—still hold traditional in-person auctions with live telephone bidding on their premises in tandem with live online bidding. Or the online bidding portions of their auctions may close before the live “cattle rattle” begins.

That’s why phone bidding is well worth the effort: If you can’t fly out to, say, Hooterville (or the nearest county with an airport) and bid with the locals in someone’s barn, then phone bidding is the next best thing. There’s even the bonus of a lower buyer’s premium than the bidding platforms charge—what Mr. Ziffel and his clever pig, Arnold, would pay by bidding from the floor. (Bear in mind, though, that you may have to arrange for third-party shipping if the auctioneer doesn’t handle it in-house.)

It makes sense not to start a bidding war. Mindless counterbidding only amps up the competition, like throwing chum to sharks. Better to let someone else have the high bid for as long as possible: they may become complacent or forget about the auction altogether . . .

With phone bidding, someone on-site will call you several lots before your item comes up and serve as your eyes and ears in the auction room, asking you if you want to continue if you are outbid by someone in the room, a previously placed absentee bid, or another phone bidder. In my experience, the smaller the auction house and the more out-of-the-way it is, the less competition you can expect from the people actually attending.

But there are other reasons why I prefer to bid by phone, even if an auctioneer has simultaneous live online bidding along with on-site, in-person bidding:

• You may experience a computer glitch. Just as on eBay, a server problem or a lost Internet connection can mean you’re out of the running. In one case, even with my Internet connection fully functioning, my bid on one of the big auction platforms didn’t register in the final moments, and I lost an item I probably would have won.
• Some auctioneers give preference to in-person bidders. Suppose you leave an absentee bid on an online bidding platform: Surely the auctioneer will give it priority over an equal bid by someone in the auction room—a bid made hours or days after you placed yours—right? Not necessarily. I actually thought I had won an item—the winning bid was the same as the absentee bid I’d left earlier—only to learn that the auctioneer had awarded it to somebody sitting ten feet away. (House policy, he said.)
• An auctioneer may fail to check the highest bids on the online auction platform they use. Maybe they’re new to online bidding, or maybe they’re just distracted, but an auctioneer may award a lot to a lower in-person bid just because they neglect to confirm what the highest absentee bid was. In one case it was mine.
• You may think you won an item during live online bidding, only to see the bidding reopened. That happened to me once as well: One of my favorite auction houses started using a live online bidding system that still had some kinks in it and I won an item at a low price—even saw a message saying I had won the lot—then stepped away from my computer, only to return to find that the bidding had resumed in my absence and I had lost the item. When I complained, the auctioneer claimed that reopening an auction for delayed bids is common industry practice. Whether that’s true or not, I don’t think it would have played out the same way if I had been bidding by phone.

But beware: Even phone bidding is not error-free. In one case, I and my proxy bidder on the other end of the line were waiting for my lot to come up—and the bid caller skipped it. Apparently, he decided to award it to an absentee bidder without realizing that a phone bidder was waiting to join the auction. Needless to say, my proxy bidder and I were both stunned. There was a happy ending, though: I immediately raised the issue with the auction house—with the very person who had arranged for me to bid by phone (always get their name!)—and she notified the auctioneer, who awarded me the item for the next bid increment.

The upshot: Before bidding in an auction, read the terms carefully, including the ways you can bid. If phone bidding is available, and you have reliable telephone service, you might consider it. It takes a little planning—you must register ahead of time and be available to speak with the proxy when your lot comes up, even if it’s at an odd hour—but it’s well worth the effort.