(Photo by Annika Cline - KJZZ)

Charles Delaney, owner of Delaney Auction and Furniture Liquidators, and his son Charles Delaney III.

Auction fever is not a medical condition, but it is the term for the hype that auctioneers generate to try to quickly increase bids. And some auctioneers are worried that online bidding would reduce the auction fever effect.

That’s part of why Charles Delaney, an auctioneer, said he’s hesitant to start an online bidding service through his auction house.  

"The whole momentum of the auction gets ruined with the online bidding, absolutely," he said.

Delaney Auction has been in the family since Delaney’s father started auctioning in the 70s. And now his 19-year-old son, Charles Delaney III, takes a turn at the mic.

The auctioneer’s strange cadence has a purpose. John Morgan is a professor at the Haas School of Business at Berkeley and researches online auction markets. He said a lot of different factors determine the perceived value of an item.

"Who’s there, how the item is being sold, the room, the display," Morgan said. "All these different things come together to decide the value of the item, it’s not something that’s determined in a vacuum." 

Morgan said live auctions generate the phenomenon known as auction fever, which can lead to higher sale prices.

Researchers at Berkeley conducted a mock auction of the same items, both online and in-person. Morgan said the live auction saw 15-25 percent more revenue on the same items than its online counterpart.

But, he said, online bidding can have a different psychological advantage.

"It’s something called the endowment effect," Morgan said.

In auctions, the endowment effect happens when a buyer starts to feel that they own the item they’re bidding on.

"And the more ownership you feel over the item, it turns out, the higher is your willingness to pay for the item," he said.

Items like the ones sold by Scottsdale Auctions and Appraisals might take more time to ponder. They sell historic Native American and pre-Columbian pieces. Jennifer Wingate said they knew they wanted to auction exclusively online when they started a year ago. Merchandise goes up on the site a few weeks before the deadline to bid.

"That gives bidders a chance to preview the items and they can leave absentee bids.

Absentee bids allow the website to automatically bid up for the customer, so they don’t have to constantly check the site. But the longer time frame also allows them to contemplate the item, request more photos and maybe start to feel like it’s theirs. 

Back at Delaney Auction, about 400 items are cleared out in a single night. Doing this online would be tough, but Delaney admits it’s probably inevitable.

"We’re gonna be there eventually," he said. "We will have two locations, though, it’ll be two separate entities."

That way the online auction world and the live auction world won’t collide and the customers can take their pick.