Home / Documentation / API
API reference · 18.08.2026
The Auction Experts API
Auction Experts exposes a REST API that auction websites and integrations use to read and act on auction data — auctions, lots, bids, bidders, invoices, watchlists and registrations. It is the same API our own front ends run on. There is no privileged internal version and no second-class public one: if our auction sites can do it, an integration can do it.
The reference below is generated from the API’s own specification, so it describes what is deployed, not what was intended. 57 operations in 18 resource groups.
Design
REST, resource-oriented, explicit about its version. Resources are addressed as resources and acted on with the HTTP verb that matches. The version prefix is part of every path, so a future revision cannot silently change behaviour underneath a working integration.
Three credentials, for three situations.
| Credential | Sent as | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| member token | Authorization: Bearer | JWT Authorization header using the Bearer scheme. Example: "Authorization: Bearer {token}" |
| anonymous token | Authorization: Bearer | The anonymous, tenant-scoped token from POST /v1/tokens/anonymous. No account behind it — it reaches the catalogue and the sign-in flows, nothing belonging to a member. |
| Api-Key header | Api-Key | Identifies the calling application, and is required on every /v1 route whether or not a member is signed in. Issued per consumer; ask your contact at Auction Experts for one. |
Anything belonging to a bidder is addressed as /v1/me/… — the signed-in bidder, never an identifier. There is no route that reads one bidder’s data with another bidder’s token; the API does not express that operation at all.
Money is in whole minor units. Cents for euro tenants. Never a decimal in transit, never a rounding argument.
Language is explicit. Endpoints returning translatable content take the language you want. Lot titles, descriptions, category names and interface strings all come back in it.
Lists are paged, with filtering on the fields an auction front end actually needs. Free-text lot search is a separate operation backed by a search index rather than a database scan.
Getting a key
Every call carries an Api-Key that identifies the calling application. Keys are issued per consumer; ask your contact at Auction Experts for one. Member tokens then come from POST /v1/sessions with the bidder’s email and password — no client secret is ever needed in a front end.
The reference
All documentation →- Credentials · 3Obtain the application, anonymous and member tokens that every other call needs.
- Auctions · 6Retrieve an auction, list auctions by status, download the catalogue or a spreadsheet export, fetch translated copy, record acceptance of the terms.
- Lots · 11Retrieve and search lots, read the latest bids, and manage the signed-in bidder's watchlist and consignments.
- Lot attributes · 2The custom fields defined per lot type, and the values available to filter on.
- Lot links · 1Links attached to a lot.
- Categories · 3The category tree, a single category, and the categories present in one auction.
- Live auctions · 2Whether a live sale is running, and whether a given auction is live.
- Auction registration · 2Request registration for an auction and check whether the signed-in bidder is registered.
- Lot registration · 1Whether the signed-in bidder may bid on a specific lot.
- Auction documents · 2List and download the documents attached to an auction.
- Sign-up and sign-in · 9Register, confirm an email address, sign in, reset a password, verify a phone number by SMS, check availability.
- Bidder profile · 2Retrieve and update the signed-in bidder's own profile.
- Identity documents · 3Upload, list and remove the signed-in bidder's identity and company documents.
- Invoices · 5The signed-in bidder's invoices: list, retrieve, download the PDF, raise an invoice for a cost, set a shipping preference.
- Notifications · 2Subscribe to and remove push notifications for the signed-in bidder.
- Contact · 1Send a contact-form message to the auction house.
- Languages · 1The languages the auction house publishes in.
- Translations · 1The interface translation dictionary.
What is not in it
This is the bidder-facing API. The back office is not exposed through it — cataloguing, consignment intake, invoicing runs, live-auction operation and tenant configuration are separate, and deliberately so. Integrations that push catalogue data into the platform from an existing system use a different, system-to-system interface; ask us about it.
Errors
Standard HTTP semantics: a malformed request, an invalid or expired credential, an authenticated caller without permission, and a resource that does not exist or is not visible to that tenant are each distinguished by status code. Each endpoint’s page lists the codes it returns.