Curator-led experiences

A specialist walking six people through a gallery, opening a case, or explaining what an object is and why it survives is the thing a museum can put in an auction that nobody else on earth can. It has no comparable price, it costs the institution an afternoon of somebody's time, and it produces a donor who talks about it for years.

What to build

• A tour for six with a named curator, on a subject the winner chooses from a short list
• A store visit: the ninety percent of the collection the public never sees
• A conservation studio session, watching treatment in progress
• An identification session — the winner brings their own objects and a specialist looks at them. Frequently requested by visitors and rarely offered
• An install day: shadowing an exhibition going up
• A research session in the archive, with a member of staff, on the winner's own question
• Lunch with a director or a head of collections
• A curator's talk delivered at the winner's home or workplace

Scope every one of them on the item page

This is where these items go wrong, and it is always the same failure: the item sold, and nobody agreed what it actually was.

• How many people, and whether children are included
• How long — ninety minutes is generous and honest; "an afternoon" is not a scope
• Which named member of staff, or which department if the individual may change
• When it can happen — which months, which days, how much notice
• What is and is not included: handling, photography, refreshments, catalogue
• An expiry date, agreed with the department and stated

Write that into the description before it is listed. A winner reading a precise description bids more confidently, and a curator with a defined commitment agrees to the next one.

Pricing and starting bids

There is no market comparison, which is the point. Set a modest, defensible stated value — the cost of a comparable private guided experience — and a low starting bid, then let competition do the work. Inflating the value on a unique item suppresses the first bid and gains nothing.

Look after the curators

These items depend on colleagues who have other jobs. Three things make them sustainable: a defined commitment rather than an open one, a limit on how many you sell per person per year, and being told afterwards what their session raised and what it funded.

Museums that do the third thing find the internal ask gets easier every year. Museums that do not find the same two curators volunteering and everyone else declining.

The wider catalogue: item ideas that actually sell. Procuring internally: getting items donated.