From The Private Library's Archives: Auctions & The Private Library

Although auctions are known to have taken place as far back as 500 BCE (when Herodotus records that Babylonian women were auctioned off for marriage), the earliest known European book auction didn't take place until 1604 (that whole business with having to first invent printing from movable metal type no doubt delayed things a bit).  Under the aegis of the House of Elzevier, the famous Dutch printers, this first book auction was held in Leiden, which at that time was quite prosperous due to its large community of broadcloth weavers.

The first known English book auction took place in 1676. Most of the great book auction houses with which today's collectors are familiar sprang up in the 18th century: Sotheby's, for example, held its first auction in 1744:

Here are some other familiar auction houses, with the dates they were founded in parentheses:

• Dorotheum (1707)
• Christie's (ca. 1766)
• Bonham's (1793)
• Freeman's (1805)
• Lyon & Turnbull (1826)

Sotheby's, Christie's and Dorotheum still hold significant book auctions, but the real action nowadays often is found elsewhere...for example:

• Bloomsbury Auctions
• Dominic Winter Book Auctions
  
• PBA Galleries
• Swann Galleries

And some specialties have auction houses which focus almost exclusively on that specialty: e.g., Dorothy Sloan (which focuses on western Americana) and George Frederick Kolbe (which focuses on numismatics):

  

These auction houses run what is known as an English auction (also known as an open ascending price auction).  As Wikipedia explains it:

Participants bid openly against one another, with each subsequent bid higher than the previous bid. In some cases a maximum bid might be left with the auctioneer, who may bid on behalf of the bidder according to the bidder's instructions. The auction ends when no participant is willing to bid further, at which point the highest bidder pays their bid. Alternatively, if the seller has set a minimum sale price in advance (the 'reserve' price) and the final bid does not reach that price the item remains unsold. Sometimes the auctioneer sets a minimum amount by which the next bid must exceed the current highest bid. The most significant distinguishing factor of this auction type is that the current highest bid is always available to potential bidders.

Auction book purchases are primarily made by booksellers and advanced collectors, not by accumulators.  The minimum prices required for a listing in such auctions precludes the inclusion of lower grade, unfocused materials....