NEW YORK—Because we work in the digital realm, we are always interested to see how art is bought and sold online. In the past, we’ve highlighted favorite artist Web sites and award-worthy art sellers, and we’ve examined commerce on the colossus eBay. This week, we turn our attention to the smaller, more art-centric iGavel.com, founded by former Sothebys.com execs Lark E. Mason Jr. and Benjamin Turk Tolub.

While browsing through the site, we were intrigued to see that young Chelsea dealer Daniel Cooney has been holding his own photography auctions on iGavel. (In fact he now stages three regular, two-week auctions there each year, with the next one concluding July 19.)

Cooney told us his interest in iGavel goes back to when he worked at Sotheby’s with Mason and Tolub, as director of online photographs. When Sotheby’s wound up its in-house online auction business in 2003, Cooney headed out for bricks and mortar, while Tolub and Mason began to develop a new Web-based service model.

Cooney admits that his photo auctions are a little out of place on iGavel, which specializes in decorative and applied arts and antiques, but that does not diminish his enthusiasm for the site. “At iGavel everything’s guaranteed for authenticity, and I know Lark Mason really well, and I trust him, and we have a good working relationship. I was their second auction on the site when they first started.”

Satisfaction Guaranteed

Indeed this guarantee of authenticity is something that distinguishes iGavel from some other auction sites, and it is based upon the expertise of people such as Cooney and other established dealers and auction houses, including Litchfield County Auctions in Connecticut and Everard & Company in Georgia, whose reputations are on the line with each sale. “I want to be confident that what I’m selling is what I say it is,” Cooney explained.

Cooney and others like him are considered iGavel’s “associates,” underpinning the importance of their role in the organization. In the early days of the site, Mason personally approved each seller posting works, and as it stands now, there are still only 10 big sellers holding auctions there. More recently, though, iGavel has expanded to incorporate smaller vendors, whose items can be grouped by theme or genre to form larger auctions, though they still must receive Mason’s seal of approval.

Mason, understandably, is convinced that the iGavel model is the way of the future. “I believe that where we are is where most people will end up,” he said.

Unlike the current Christie’s and Sotheby’s auctions, which combine live and electronic bidding, iGavel is strictly digital. “It’s far more efficient for the auction to be completely online and to forego that local live bidding experience,” Mason said. And why is that? “It serves the client to be completely on the Internet,” he said.

Where his company does run into problems is not in the usual area of finances. “We’re actually making money, believe it or not!” Mason laughed. “Honestly the hardest part for us, because we make our money from contracts with people like Dan Cooney, is finding people who combine honesty and integrity with knowledge and an ability to find objects that are priced correctly. It’s very, very, very, difficult,” he said.

In fact, it swiftly becomes obvious in talking to Mason that his perception of the whole enterprise is dependent on old-fashioned qualities such as honesty and trust. (And in passing, it’s worth noting that Mason’s own reputation is impeccable: not only did he have 24 years at Sotheby’s but he is also a regular on “Antiques Roadshow.”)

“If you’re honest,” he said, “and you present things honestly and accurately and give good customer service, then what happens is that people buy things from you.”

It is equally obvious that integrity supports the relationship he enjoys with his associates. “It’s awfully nice to have a collegial relationship with other people. All of us enjoy that,”  he said.