Invoices in 72 hours, collection within 10 days, storage at $25 per lot per day after that, and no packing or shipping from Circa. Plan it before you bid.
The part of an auction that goes wrong is almost never the bidding. It is the week afterwards, when a winning bidder discovers that a 56-inch cast stone fountain is not a two-person job and that the clock has already started.
The timeline, in order
- You win the lot. The invoice is issued with the buyer's premium of 20 percent added to the hammer price, plus applicable sales tax.
- Payment is due within 72 hours of the invoice.
- Collection is within 10 days of the sale, at 249 South Mission Road, by appointment.
- After 10 days, storage is charged at $25 per lot per day.
- After 21 days, uncollected lots are treated as abandoned.
Those are the published terms, and the storage rate is per lot rather than per invoice. Six chairs bought as one lot is one storage charge. Six planters bought as six lots is six.
Circa does not pack or ship
This is the sentence to read twice. Circa is a showroom and an auction house, not a shipper. We do not pack, crate, palletise or arrange freight, and staff cannot load a vehicle for you.
What we do is keep a list of preferred shippers, available on request, who already know the building, the loading conditions and the kind of material in these sales. Contact them before the sale rather than after. A shipper who has quoted a fountain in advance can collect it in the first week; a shipper contacted on day nine cannot.
Plan the collection before you bid
Garden lots are the ones that catch people out, because the catalog gives dimensions but not weight. A rough guide for the current sale:
- Small planters, single stools and lighting. One person, one car, no equipment.
- Guhl planters and pairs. Two people. Bowls and pedestals separate; carry them separately and reassemble on site.
- Monumental fountains and cast stone bowls on pedestals. A truck, a lift gate and a dolly at minimum. Lot 11 is 56 inches high and 40 inches in diameter.
- Complete concrete or mosaic dining sets. Professional transport. Lot 2 is a table, a bench and two stools, all in tiled concrete.
- Long furniture. Measure the doorway, not the room. The Cansado bench at lot 116 is 102 inches.
Practical answers to the usual questions
- Can I send a courier or a friend. Yes. Send their name in advance and make sure they know the size of what they are collecting.
- Can I split a collection across two visits. Yes, within the 10 days, by appointment.
- Can you hold a lot until my shipper is in town. Only within the 10 days. After that, storage applies at $25 per lot per day.
- Do you provide blankets, straps or a forklift. No. Bring what the object needs.
- What about out of state buyers. Use a shipper from the preferred list and instruct them before the sale.
One rule
Decide how a lot leaves the building before you place a bid on it, not after you win it. For most objects in a garden sale, that decision takes two minutes and a tape measure, and it is the difference between a purchase and a problem.
Bidding on Escape to the Modernist Garden opens Saturday 12 September 2026 at 9:00 AM PT. Preview and collection are both at 249 South Mission Road.
