Method

Lotwatch indexes the published catalogues of Australian auction houses. Every catalogue is fetched politely (we identify ourselves, respect robots.txt, and rate-limit per source), archived unmodified, then normalised into one register: sales, lots, estimates, statuses and, after the hammer, results.

Because we re-fetch continuously, we see what changes between visits: lots withdrawn, estimates revised, dates moved, results published. Those change events are what monitors match against, and what the changelog on every sale page records.

Estate sales are flagged only from evidence in the house's own published copy ("deceased estate", "by order of the executors", "clearing sale"), and every badge shows how it was derived. We never guess, and a lot described as "estate jewellery" never flags a sale.

Estimates and results are the houses' published figures, reproduced as facts with their source. Lotwatch does not value lots, does not bid, and holds no commercial relationship with any auction house. Full catalogue text remains the houses' copyright, so we show normalised facts and link to the source for the rest.

Found an error? The provenance footer on every page shows when we last fetched the source. Write to hello@lotwatch.au and we'll trace it.