Welcome to The Merchants' Guild, an auction site specifically designed to bring medieval, Renaissance, and fantasy LARP auctions together! Our hope is to provide a place for crafters and sellers to hawk their wares, for faire-goers and LARPers to find the things they need for next event, and for SCA and history enthusiasts to search for quality items to enhance their collection. By providing a community for buyers and sellers to mingle, we strive to reward talented artisans and make it easier for people to find the specialty and custom items that can be so hard to find in this day and age.

This site is built by, designed by, and tested by people who are into the various and wondrous worlds that are LARP, Ren Faire, and historical re-enactment. We share the same passion, and we hope you will join us in our quest to make this site a thriving success and a bustling marketplace for the worldwide gaming and re-enactment communities.

If you are new to The Merchants' Guild, you will first want to create a free account with our New Account Form. This account enables you to browse and bid on auctions, as well as create your own auctions to sell. When creating a new account, your username is not case-sensitive, but your password will be, so choose wisely. But don't worry: if you forget your password at any time, you can just use the Lost Password Form to retrieve it.

Once you're all finished with setting up your new account, feel free to look around! The Marketplace is the central point of the Merchants' Guild, giving you access to all the auction categories and listings, as well as the top ten Most Popular Auctions, Newest Auctions, and Closing Auctions: great for seeing what's hot, what's new, and what needs to be snapped up quickly! Consider the Marketplace your own personal launch point to start your journey, and feel free to explore!

If you're just starting out, you'll also want to check out the My Account page to set up your account preferences. From there, you can track and post auctions, host images, and create your own Profile for others to view (see the Guildmaster's Profile for an example of what you can do, and for more information on how to personalize your own Profile).

As you look around the site, you might notice little question marks, like this: These provide valuable information about whatever it is they are placed next to. Use them to help understand the site if you have any questions. We also have a detailed FAQ if you need more help, or if all else fails, please Contact Us with your questions! We're always happy to help.

After browsing through the site, you may find something you'd like to bid on! After all, that is the purpose of the site, right? Well just scroll down! At the bottom of every auction you'll find everything you need to place your bid quickly and easily.

The "Place Bid" section at the bottom of the auction shows the current and minimum bids, and lets you place either a proxy or a direct bid: your choice. What's the difference, you say? Well, let's illustrate:

• A proxy bid raises the bid to just high enough to beat the next highest bid, and will automatically match others' bids until it reaches the amount you entered. (Think eBay.)
   
  Example: A leather bodice is currently at $30. You decide that you would be willing to pay up to $75 for it, so you place a proxy bid for $75. If no one else bids, you only have to pay $31 (or whatever the auction shows now as the "Current Bid")! But if someone bids against you, the system will automatically defend your bid until someone bids higher than $75.
   
  
• A direct bid immediately raises the auction price to the amount you enter.
   
  Example: The description for an auction says that, if the bidding reaches over $100, they will include a free set of accessories. But the bid is only at $25. You want the accessories, so you place a direct bid for $100. This guarantees that you will get the bonus offered, because your bid forced the price to the required amount. (Note: The system will not defend this bid. If someone beats the bid, you might want to place a proxy bid for further competition.)
   
  

If the seller has set a "Direct Buy" price on their auction, you can immediately buy the item without having to compete against other bidders. Simply check the box next to "Direct Buy" (no need to enter a bid amount) and hit the "Place Bid" button.

If you are not logged in when you view an auction, the "Place Bid" area will have fields for your username and password, and will automatically log you in when you place your bid. If you are already logged in, it will display your username with the option of changing users.

Just remember, any bids you place are legally binding and cannot be retracted. If you have any questions orconcerns about the auction, there is a "Comment/Question" box right next to the "Place Bid" area so you can send a message directly to the seller. You will get an email when the seller replies to you, or if you check back on the auction, you can read all comments, which are linked in the information at the top of every auction.

Starting a new auction is fairly easy. The first thing you'll want to consider is: how will you show what you are selling? Luckily, we offer free image hosting with an automatic thumbnail generator, so you can upload, store, and use images on our site for your auctions. Just go to your My Account page and click the Images tab to use the image uploader:

You can upload images from your hard drive, or if they are on another site, you can just enter the URL to have it linked into your images. Linking is less reliable than uploading, because some image hosting sites do not allow remote image linking or may be unreliable, so we highly recommend uploading your images here to make sure they show up on your auction. Also, once you have images in the system, you can use your pictures over and over again without having to upload every time! So if you sell items more than once, you can just leave your auction image on our systems, and never bother with reuploading it.

With our image uploader, you can opt for the system to create an automatic thumbnail of your picture. It will automatically resize your image to exactly the right size for use throughout the site, and save it to your gallery for you. All the work is done for you!

Once you've uploaded all the images you need, you can use the New Auction Form (as shown on the right here) to start your auction! You can list regular auctions, Dutch auctions, and even private auctions (not displayed on the main site or listings, but directly linkable) on this site. We also encourage use of HTML to make your auction stand out (though if you're not comfortable with HTML, we have a plain text option too).

If you need help on what to include in the content of your auction, we have a very informative page that lists Successful Auction Tips to help make your auction stand out, attract more attention, and hopefully get more buyers. Please take a moment to glance through it, you never know what you could learn!

After you have set up your auction, you will be taken to a preview screen which shows the image you have chosen and the description field. If you are using HTML in your auction, make sure it looks correct in the preview before accepting. Once you accept, your auction is live and ready to take bids! (Unless, of course, you schedule your auction to open at a later date instead of immediately.)