Silver & Silver-plated items

The sale of a comprehensive collection of Channel Islands silver in Guernsey provides a perfect opportunity to test the market temperature...

It is possible to have too much of a good thing in a narrow collecting market – a feature amplified when the leading player has left the field.

A recent silver sale at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury included a cache of early spoons from the collection of David Constable. Each had been illustrated and discussed in his magnum opus, 'Silver Spoons of Britain', published in 2016.

The dual appeal of Maltese silver lies in both a sense of national pride and a very limited supply.

Estimated at £12,000-18,000, this impressive pair of Regency four-light candelabra dipped just under hopes to sell for £11,500 at Fellows in Birmingham.

The Canterbury Auction Galleries included this George IV silver vinaigrette by John Lawrence & Co, Birmingham, decorated with a view of St Peter’s Church, Brighton. It sold to an Australian internet bidder for £2300.

A fine pair of Victorian figural table salts in the form of sea maidens on the back of dolphins sold for £4900 (estimate £1500-2000) at Wootton Auction Rooms in Gloucestershire on October 17. Weighing 33oz, they carry marks for John Wilmin Figg, London 1841.

Sotheby’s From Earth To Fire sale in Bond Street on November 1 was topped by a kunstkammer object with a Rothschild provenance.

Overshadowed by the £130,000 Giacometti double-sided sketch (ATG No 2314), other pieces at Cheffins’ (23% buyer’s premium) sale at Cambridge on October 12 flourished under the banner of post-1880 design.

Martel Maides in St Peter Port, Guernsey will sell a massive collection of Channel Islands silver on October 18, writes Roland Arkell.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

Charlie King has reason to be proud of his performance at the Hingham Antiques Fair in Norfolk in August when he closed a deal for £900 on a 1906 Arts & Crafts silver tazza.

Although much less fashionable than they were, a set of silver candlesticks can nonetheless prove solid sellers as did these four, above, at Mallams’ (20% buyer’s premium) sale in Oxford on August 23.

A set of four Victorian kangaroos salts made by silversmiths Hunt & Roskell sold for Aus$70,000 (£42,000) as part of the Fairfax collection at Leonard Joel in Sydney on August 31-September 2.

So much more successful than their 18th century forebears, today’s Jacobites go from strength to strength.