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In Australia, Tony Barber hosted an early version of Sale of the Century under the title of Temptation during the 1970s, and was also the initial host of Sale, replaced by Glenn Ridge in 1991. more...

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Hostesses over the years have included Victoria Nicholls, Delvene Delaney, Alyce Platt, Jo Bailey, Nicky Buckley and Karina Brown. Pete Smith was Sale's announcer. See below for the show's most recent reincarnation as Temptation, which is hosted by Ed Phillips. The current hostess is Livinia Nixon.

Main Game

All contestants are spotted with $20 to start. The host reads a trivia question to the three contestants (one of which was usually the winner of the previous show). The first to press a buzzer gets an opportunity to answer the question (even if the host is still in the middle of reading the question). Players' scores increase by $5 for each correct answer and decrease by $5 for each incorrect answer. If a player answers incorrectly, the correct answer is revealed and the game goes on to the next question - that is, only one person can try to answer each question.

Gift Shop

Once per round, the highest-scoring player gets to go to a "gift shop" and was offered the chance to sacrifice some part of his/her score to "purchase" a prize. The prizes, and the cost, increased in each round. Contestants were allowed to haggle with the host, who, depending on the game situation, could reduce the cost and offer inducements including actual cash in order to entice the contestant to purchase. If two or more players had the same score at this point, a Dutch auction was conducted for the prize.

Some gift shops also included a bonus prize called a "Sale Surprise", revealed only after the conclusion of the gift shop (whether the contestant bought the prize or not).

Cash Box

The Cash Box replaced the third gift shop in 1986. The player in the lead (auction if there was a tie) would be given the opportunity to play for a cash jackpot, which increased every day until it was won. To play, he/she would have to give up his/her lead over the second-place competitor. If the contestant opted to play, he/she selected one of three boxes. One box contained the jackpot while each of the other boxes contained a smaller amount.

Cashcard

In 1989, the Cash Box was replaced with a "cashcard," an opportunity for the leading contestant to either win a cash prize equivalent to perhaps a month's average wages for a middle-class Australian at the time, earn the opportunity to win a car later in the game (see section on major prizes), receive the score he/she sacrificed back, or reduce the score of a competitor slightly. This cost a player $15 to play. From 1989 to 1993, this was played with four actual playing cards, from 1994 through to 1999, four poker machines were used (the hostess pulled the handle to reveal the prize), and from 2000 until the last episode in 2001, a single touch screen was used.

Read more at Wikipedia.org