Butterfields Rebrands Logo for New Millennium after Most Successful Quarter in Firm's 135-Year History.

Business Editors

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 23, 2000

Butterfield & Butterfield, as it has been known for 135 years, is undergoing a redesign of its name, its logo, its facilities and its business plan, due in part to its 1999 acquisition by online trading giant eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY). The world's fourth-largest auctioneer, riding high after setting multiple world record prices for fine art and furniture sales during the last quarter of 1999, broke the $100 million sale mark last year - a first for the firm.

"Butterfields, an eBay company," is the new and simplified company title. The fine art auctioneers and appraisers host more than 150 sales each year as well as drop-in appraisal events in their San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago galleries. Butterfields remains the only major auction house to offer real-time online bidding in all of its "brick and mortar" fine art sales.

The company, a wholly-owned subsidiary of San Jose, CA-based eBay, provides collectors and dealers with illustrated catalogs and sale information at their website www.butterfields.com. Internet traffic to the Butterfields website nearly doubled in late 1999 from 2nd Qtr figures and the company logo has been given a more modern look, redesigned to represent the company's relationship to eBay and a pool of millions of Internet-savvy consumers. Many of these new customers have limited exposure to traditional auctions, but as a whole, have spent many millions in online sales. The company's high-end online art and collectibles sales are featured at "Butterfields on eBay Great Collections" (www.butterfields.com or www.ebaygreatcollections.com).

Clients from around the world garner values for their property by mailing and emailing images of antiques and collectibles to the auction house. Butterfields appraisers have been seen on television on the PBS Antiques Roadshow as well as HGTV's popular program Appraise It! Butterfields Chicago gallery will soon be regularly featured on another HGTV program At the Auction beginning next season. Hundreds of hopeful clients line up twice each month to have their personal property appraised at each of the auctioneer's galleries.

Auctions for 2000 include emerging collecting areas such as entertainment memorabilia with a major sale scheduled this summer of property from members of the rock band KISS as well as eagerly anticipated Asian, ethnographic, natural history and wine sales. Traditional collecting areas have seen renewed interest in recent years as record prices have been achieved for California paintings, furniture and for arms & armor (a specialty for the auctioneers - Butterfields is the leading house for sales of antique firearms).

"With `e-commerce' as the buzzword of the new century, Butterfields is uniquely positioned to capture the interest of the Internet. The redesign of our corporate image better reflects and exemplifies what Internet users are most comfortable seeing - a streamlined and efficient product," says marketing director Michael Miller. "The new look ties into that of our parent eBay, while remaining distinctively high-end/art world in its feel."