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It's all part of an expensive makeover that Sotheby's is undergoing in hopes of shedding its staid image for a more amenable mien -- including the erection of a new, steel-and-glass emporium at Sotheby's New York headquarters that Brooks describes as a "destination location for entertainment and learning."

Today, more than 80 percent of the objects sold by Sotheby's are priced at less than $5,000, but the Sotheby's name continues to evoke million-dollar masterpieces. As David Redden, executive vice president of Sotheby's, puts it, "There is still trepidation about coming across the threshold of Sotheby's. It's a real problem for us. Our reputation causes a certain sense of bashfulness."

This, then, is what Sotheby's is hoping to dispel not only by moving online but by partnering with Amazon.com, the final word in entrepreneurial e-commerce. As Brooks puts it, "In one fell swoop, you take that [trepidation] away when you have a partnership of these two companies. Amazon is totally approachable and accessible to people."

This partnership is Sotheby's great hope for reaching the common person -- like those 10 million Amazon.com customers -- who might have never considered buying an antique diamond watch before, and for eliminating the dividing line between wealthy collectors and online hobbyists, reaping the profits that ensue.

But anyone who is already familiar with online, person-to-person auction sites will find that the two Sotheby's sites, launching in September at sothebys.com and sothebys.amazon.com respectively, will be very different animals indeed. Although the auctions will have the basic transactional methods familiar to denizens of the online auction world -- a searchable database of items that you can digitally bid upon -- there will be some key differences.

While the sothebys.com site will focus on the traditional paintings, drawings and art objects you'd find at live auctions, the sothebys.amazon.com site will serve up more pop objects: "toys, fashion, animation art, coin, stamps -- as well as more general art, decorative objects, jewelry and collectibles." The difference between the two auction sites, says Brooks, has less to do with price or quality and more to do with "character."

Beyond simple price point, the Sotheby's projects distinguish themselves from current offerings by bringing in professional appraisers. Think of it this way: EBay and other person-to-person auctions are a free-for-all, where any anonymous enthusiast (or huckster) can stick grandma's silver up for sale for any random price. To auction it at sothebys.com, however, you would have to take your silver to Sotheby's, or else to one of its 2,800 "partners" -- primarily experts, dealers and antique resellers -- to have it examined, appraised and photographed.

That appraiser will serve as the vendor for your silver, pricing it and answering all questions from bidders regarding history and authenticity, in exchange for a cut of the deal. It's what Sotheby's and Amazon.com are calling "professional-to-person," and is an authenticating process that they believe will assuage the fears serious collectors might have of online auctions.

This authentication issue -- the question of whether that Queen Anne table is really what the seller says it is -- has long been troublesome to many who frequent online auctions. It may not matter when you are picking up a $5 tchotchke, but when you are spending $1,000 on a fine antique it is crucial to know that the person who is selling it to you is knowledgeable enough to describe it. This, of course, is what Sotheby's has spent 255 years perfecting.

As Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com, explains, "What Sotheby's and Amazon.com are going to try to build together is an auction environment online that allows people to bid for and buy valuable objects with confidence. The core problem there has been authentication and guarantees of authentication, and one of the ways that we are going to solve this problem is with this extraordinary asset that Sotheby's brings to the table."

The sothebys.amazon.com site will launch with the sale of the Barry Halper baseball collection, a renowned collection of 19th and 20th century baseball memorabilia, which Sotheby's hopes will draw a wide variety of people to the site. That auction should set the tone for future auctions; Sotheby's plans to use the site to expand into new areas, primarily into the (comparatively) lower-end collectibles that it wouldn't sell at live auction.

"There are just so many million dollar paintings in the world," laughs Brooks, "but there are hundreds of thousands of wonderful things under $5,000 that we will be able to sell as a result of what we are doing."

Christie's also plans to launch a professional-to-person auction site later this year, the plans for which were rushed out in a press release after Sotheby's announced its project in January. Although the company has been slow to release any details (and failed to return repeated phone calls requesting an interview), industry reports suggest that Christie's project will follow the same pattern as Sotheby's: Thousands of partner/dealers will appraise, document and sell the objects through the Christie's site.

But is there a market for high-end sales online? A quick look through existing auction sites shows that the number of collectors trading in fine antiques and collectibles is paltry compared to those swapping tchotchkes; on one recent day the antiques area of eBay boasted 52,202 auctions -- compared to the 240,718 in "toys and beanies, plush."

It's a simple matter of economics: Luxury goods are just that -- objects that not everyone can afford. There's a bigger market for cheap oddities than expensive heirlooms; more people who are willing to fork out $20 for a remote controlled flying saucer than $250,000 for a colonial highboy.

Another reason for the disparity could be that collectors are wary about buying an expensive item that they can't touch. Guarantees of authentication from "experts" might alleviate some concerns. But Sotheby's also makes the valid point that over 25 percent of its live auction sales go to phone-in bidders who only glimpse their purchases in printed catalogues; the Net would, in fact, be an improvement over the expensive catalogues, enabling multiple pictures and deeper information about the items.

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