Sotheby's And Christie's Open Their Exclusive Doors A Little Wider

Sharon Lancaster, a middle-class mother of one, never thought she would be bidding away in the tony London confines of Christie's. Yet when she saw the auction catalog for some Modern Design furniture and decorations, the bug bit her. Most of the items were expected to sell for under $5,000. That was still a stretch for the 35-year-old Lancaster, but she decided to splurge. As it turned out, she was outbid for a 1958 Arne Jacobsen Egg Chair. Still, Lancaster enjoyed the thrill. "At first I felt frightened," she admits. "But it was dead easy. I'll definitely come again."

As the auction season opens, Lancaster is one of the new class of customers being pursued by Christie's International PLC and its American archrival Sotheby's Holdings Inc. Both have sold jewels and paintings to the rich for centuries. But that's a cyclical business, as the collapse of the art market in 1990 showed. Finally recovering from that fiasco, both companies are using their rising earnings to fuel an expansion beyond their traditional business of fine art auctioneering. Not only are they courting first-time buyers such as Lancaster with lower-priced collectibles, but they're also entering new overseas markets and exploring such ideas as auctions on the Internet. The challenge: to diversify without scuffing white-shoe reputations.