Davenport

ALDRIDGE’S (15% buyer's premium) are yet to be convinced of the marketing powers of the Internet (they have no website and no e-mail) but specialist Ivan Street’s belief that “on-line sale catalogues do not improve prices” was given weight when a collector tendered a punchy £7100 for a large Victorian doll’s house with pre-sale hopes of £2000-3000 at their March 30 outing.

MALLAMS 463-lot Gloucestershire auction on June 28 (15% buyer's premium) included one of the Victorian olivewood pieces inscribed Jerusalem which have made a couple of startling prices of late.

William Blake did not manage to persuade his non-conformist followers to build Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land, but a Victorian carpenter came close with this davenport, right. Consigned to the May 22-23 sale held at Winterton’s (10% buyer’s premium) in Lichfield, the davenport belongs to an interesting group of 19th century olivewood furniture bearing the logo Jerusalem, written in English or Hebrew.

NOT the top seller at this 653-lot Suffolk sale at Abbotts on 19 December but interesting in that it sold at all, was a burr walnut Victorian davenport.