Frequently asked questions

A listing only ever goes live after two things happen: the seller submits it here, and physically transfers the item to Olympus Reserve in-game. An admin confirms what arrived matches what was listed before bidding opens. There's no API for the item side of this — it's a manual, human-verified step by design.

When an auction settles, the item is released from escrow only after the winning bid's payment clears.

Bidding defaults to proxy: you set a secret maximum, and the system only raises your standing bid as needed to stay ahead of the next-highest bidder — by a 5% increment — up to that maximum. No one ever sees your max, including after the auction ends.

You can switch to hard stop instead: the number you enter becomes the visible price immediately if it takes the lead, with nothing held back — no secret ceiling, and it won't auto-raise later if someone outbids you. Useful if you'd rather bid transparently than hide behind a proxy maximum.

Some listings use Extended Bidding: a bid placed in the final few minutes extends the clock, so a last-second snipe can't end an auction a genuinely interested bidder didn't get a fair chance to answer. Others use Sudden Death, which ends exactly on schedule no matter what. Each listing states which it uses.

The funds behind your bid are only ever held while you're the leading bidder. The moment someone outbids you, that hold is released back to your available balance immediately — nothing stays tied up in an auction you're no longer winning.

An optional minimum a seller sets when listing — the floor below which they'd rather not sell at all. It's entirely your choice: leave it blank and the item sells to whoever's leading when the auction ends, no floor at all.

It's never shown to bidders — they'll only ever see "reserve not met" if the auction closes below it, never the actual number. It's checked against the leading bidder's true maximum, not the publicly displayed price, which under proxy bidding can be lower than what someone would actually have paid.

If the reserve isn't met, nothing sells: every bidder's held funds are released automatically, and the listing ends unsold. As the seller, you'll get a notification, and an admin still has to hand your item back to you in-game — the same manual step as sending it into escrow in the first place. A bidder who wanted it can still reach out afterward through the listing page to ask about a private sale.

Olympus charges a seller commission only — there's no buyer's premium. The rate is marginal and tiered, the same way income tax brackets work: crossing into a higher tier only changes the rate on the next ELIX, not the whole sale. That means proceeds always rise smoothly with price — there's never a point where selling for slightly more nets you less.

See exactly what you'd net before you list on the consign a piece page — it computes your estimated payout live from your starting bid.

Funds move through D47's transfer API. A deposit is real currency the moment you approve it in D47 — irreversible, immediately credited to your Olympus balance. What you see as your balance here is our own ledger, not something D47 tracks after that point.

Every completed sale becomes a data point. Search comps filtered by the same attributes a listing is described with — gem type, carat, color, clarity, origin, treatment — for genuinely comparable results, not a generic market index.