THE OBJECT I COVETED at the 2006 sale was Lot 204, a humble pair of sunglasses worn by Roald Amundsen during his victorious 1911–12 race with Scott to become the first man to reach the South Pole.

Made from a silvery alloy, the shades had round, yellow-green lenses and came inside a black spectacle case embossed with ROALD AMUNDSEN in tiny gilt letters. The catalog estimated the sunglasses would fetch between $1,600 and $2,300—expensive, but feasible.

So, on the afternoon of September 27, I found myself sitting toward the back of Christie's auction hall, clutching a "registered-bidder paddle" in my right hand. I was bidder 342.

The session began with the auctioneer,

The object I coveted was Lot 204, the sunglasses Roald Amundsen wore during his victorious 1911–12 race to the South Pole. Estimated Price: between $1,600 and $2,300. Expensive, but feasible.

Jonathan Horwich, hustling briskly through his 106 lots. With each new item, Horwich would open somewhere near the catalog's low estimate, then streak up or down depending on interest. Sometimes the bids would rise toward half a million dollars. But other times, buyers seemed bored, and Horwich would dispatch the lot with a dismissive statement: "Pass. Next item."

A medium-size man dressed in the standard-issue British blazer and gray flannel trousers, Horwich managed to keep focused on several things at once: the 100-person auction audience, a laptop computer showing digital bids, and a line of a dozen blue-blazered "auction specialists" to his right, whose ears were glued to telephones placed on a tall counter.

Seated around me, bidding on books, maps, and paintings, was a mix of ruddy-looking, largely middle-aged, mostly European humanity. There were a few sleekly dressed suede ladies, their graying hair pulled back in tight buns. There was a scattering of hedgehoglike men, dressed in tweeds and dutifully writing down the going price of every object in the margins of their catalogs. These guys, I assumed, were explorabilia dealers, but I couldn't be sure: To a person, none would speak to me for attribution.

There were even a few well-heeled and rugged-looking explorer types, both male and female. One of them, a tall, balding, thoroughbred-thin man who'd been carrying a banjo case when he came through Christie's double doors, purchased James Clark Ross's chronometer, used in the mid-1800s during an early Antarctic voyage on the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror. I watched as he paid £36,000 (about $68,000) for the chronograph without so much as a shrug.

Who was he? I have no idea. He refused to talk to me, too. I think the problem was an insignia I wore that set me apart from the other bidders: a press badge.