The 4 PM EST time is the cutoff time to place initial bids that will qualify you to be active on a given lot during extended bidding. All lots in the auction will remain open, and close at one time, likely until the early morning of Sunday, May 19 as in previous years the auction has continued until roughly 3 AM EST.
Here's a detailed explanation of the auction closing procedure:
A quick review on how the auction closes on the final day of bidding (May 18, 2013):
Bidding will continue on all lots after 4:00 PM EDT, but only for those bidders who have previously bid on that very lot. All lots close simultaneously. The auction will remain open for bids until approximately fifteen minutes pass without a bid on any lot in the auction. As as a practical matter, the auction always continues for many hours after 4:00 PM EDT. If the auction continues to as late as 11:00 P.M. EDT (which has always been the case in the past), Robert Edward Auctions reserves the right to close the auction, at its sole discretion, at any time. After 11:00 PM EDT, we may close the auction without reference to the fifteen minute rule. We recommend bidders leave maximum left bids utilizing Robert Edward Auctions’ “Honest Auto-Bid” system to avoid disappointment.
There will be no warning to exactly when we will close the auction should bidding continue past 11:00 P.M. While in past years the auction has always remained open past 2:00 A.M. EDT (technically the morning of May 19, 2013), we cannot make any guarantees. The auction could close earlier or later. Last year the auction closed a little after 3:30 A.M. After 11:00 PM there is an uncertainty. If you are planning to place a bid after 11:00 PM but choose to wait until a later time to place your bid, you are incurring the risk that the auction may close before you place your bid. This closing system is designed to reward bidders, and eliminate strategies which intentionally encourage the auction to remain open endlessly for the express purpose of giving an advantage to bidders who have the ability to stay up the latest. (Some bidders, if given the opportunity, would repeatedly bid on the smallest value items just to extend the auction, in the hopes that competitors on very significant lots will fall asleep. This closing system takes the power away from bidders who attempt to use this strategy.) The auction goes late enough as is.
Remember: we are closing all 1826 lots in one night. This is far greater number of lots than other auctions utilizing different closing procedures. This system works. It is fair to bidders and fair to consignors. There are only two reasons acceptable to us for a bidder not to win any lot of interest in this auction: 1) You don’t want it; or 2) It went too high. When the auction is over, callers will be greeted with a message informing them that the auction is over, and a message will also appear on our website stating that all bidding is closed. All lots remain open for bidding until the close of the entire auction. We won’t close the auction until the bidding slows to a virtual halt and all callbacks have been made. All lots are closed simultaneously.
The new “recent bids” feature may give bidders a feel for when the auction is winding down. If you have not seen this page, take a look. It is located on the menu to the left on the REA bidding site that provides several viewing choices (”Images,” “Gallery View,” “Price Grid,” etc). It is entitled “Recent Bids”. Here’s a direct link:
http://bid.robertedwardauctions.com/recentbids.aspx
This page allows you to see in chronological order the following details regarding the last one-hundred bids that have been placed: Lot #, Lot Title, Current Bid, and the exact time of the bid to the second. If you are wondering what the pace of the auction is at any given time, this page will allow you to see the one-hundred lots that have most recently been bid on, what has been bid, and when. We designed this because we thought it would be a particularly exciting feature for those following the auction closely, especially on the final day of bidding.