Derksen Veilingbedrijf

Derksen calls itself the oldest auction house in Gelderland and works from a listed national monument. It is a certified register auction business and a member of the Dutch federation TMV, which in the Netherlands is the mark that separates a professional saleroom from a clearance operation. Sales are infrequent but large: five a year, and a recent one carried 2,650 lots of art, antiques, design and curiosities across six days.

What you can buy

• Art and antiques, the core of every sale.
• Design and twentieth-century objects.
• Curiosa — the miscellaneous end of an estate.
• Complete estates (nalatenschappen), consigned whole.
• Property, handled as a separate service.

How the bidding works

Auctions run over consecutive days with a published catalogue, and the house streams them live through international bidding platforms, so you can follow from outside the Netherlands. Viewing days (kijkdagen) are held before each sale and the house actively encourages first-time buyers to attend one. Valuations are offered, including informally by photograph over WhatsApp.

What to check before you bid

With five sales a year and thousands of lots in each, the catalogue is the whole of the research — check when the next viewing day is, because between sales there is nothing to see. Estate material is sold as found and condition reporting is what you ask for rather than what arrives by default. The site runs in Dutch and English.