However at the latest sale at Elsecar, where 239 of the 251 lots found buyers and totalled £17,600, this rare and undamaged mallet-shaped whiskey jug, left, stayed in the UK.
The 63/4in (17cm) high transfer printed jug once held the Irish rather than the Scotch hard stuff and attracted interest from America and Ireland but went to a Scottish collector at a double-estimate £235.
Highest price of the day was the £700 bid for a Fry’s chocolate display cabinet.
Double whiskey in the jar
UK: “THE saving grace of the whisky bottle market,” said Alan Blakeman who runs bottle specialists BBR (buyer’s premium 10 per cent) , “is that as soon as the Australians, with their currency problems, started to disappear from the scene, the Americans started to show an interest.”
