The August 25 sales comprised the collection’s 20 or so best-quality clocks and they all sold to a mixture of collectors and specialist dealers.
Foremost was a 19th century Tompion-style bracket clock in an ebonised case which took £1800 from a private buyer while a collector bid £900 for an unusual mid-19th century oak bracket clock signed C.J. Klaftenberger, 157 Regent Street, London.
Klaftenberger was the vice-president of the British Horological Institute at the time.
There was also sizeable private dispersal of 20th century studio pottery from a local collection including works by Bernard Leach, Bennett Cooper and Hamada.
All bar one of the 30 lots found buyers with specialist dealers securing the lion’s share of entries including a c.1962 Lucie Rie conical porcelain bowl with an elliptical rim. Standing just 2 3/4in (7cm) high, it topped the collection when it sold at £1000.
Slow but certain tactics meet challenge of 200 clocks
DISPERSING 200 mixed-quality clocks may seem a daunting prospect for some provincial auctioneers, but, by selling the Staffordshire collection in bite-size chunks through their general, oak and country and fine auctions, Richard Winterton (15% buyer's premium) managed to get away almost all entries during the summer months.
