On Onsale's website, the current high bidders' initials and hometowns updated on the page as the auction ran. The Mountain View company sold refurbished and closeout computers, printers and electronics this way, around the clock, more than a year before eBay became a household name. More than 30,000 people registered as bidders in a single quarter of 1996. When Onsale went public in April 1997, it was one of the first companies to prove that strangers would bid real money on a web page.

Jerry Kaplan's Auction House

Jerry Kaplan, who had earlier founded the pen-computing company GO, started Onsale with Alan Fisher in July 1994. The bet was that the web could clear surplus goods faster and at better prices than catalog liquidators. Manufacturers and distributors had warehouses full of last year's models. Onsale took that stock and sold it in timed auctions, where the urge to win pushed prices up and the live updates kept bidders coming back.

Becoming Egghead

Onsale priced its offering at $6 a share in April 1997 and listed on Nasdaq. In November 1999 it merged with Egghead.com, the former software chain that had closed its stores to sell online, and the combined company took the Egghead.com name. Price wars with other online retailers drained its cash. Egghead.com filed for bankruptcy in August 2001, and Amazon bought its brand and web address at auction that December.

Cover: Preview at the Auction House Drouot, Charles Maurand. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for bidders crowding an auction preview (the live auction).