Lawrences of Crewkerne

Two musical boxes catching the eye and ear among the small vertu sections at summer silver sales.

Two collections assembled since the late 1960s enthuse a fresh generation of buyers.

At an uncertain time bidders are assertive when the best and not the rest comes up at auction.

Opening the antique ceramics section of Lawrences’ (25% buyer’s premium) four-day sale in Crewkerne was the William Farrar Jackson collection of commemorative English pottery.

Satirical magazine Private Eye once ran a series highlighting the fatuity of interviews by supposedly asking famous names their feelings towards spoons, there being nothing more mundane or less worthy of comment. But the appeal of an antique spoon to the cognoscenti is not difficult to appreciate.

Offered as a sale within a sale, 34 silver snuff boxes and vinaigrettes came fresh to market at Lawrences’ April 9 sale after decades in a private collection.

On account of its relative scarcity, all Irish silver carries a premium. It is the pieces made in small provincial centres that are most highly prized.

After almost 50 years on public display in the silver galleries at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, a James I silver shell-form spice or sugar box was offered for sale at Salisbury saleroom Woolley & Wallis.

A Victorian hardstone and gold necklace and similar brooch sold for an unexpected £7500 (estimate £600-800) at Lawrences (25% buyer’s premium) of Crewkerne on April 11.

Lawrences of Crewkerne’s militaria auction on May 16 will include an important set of awards and medals to Vice Admiral Sir HT Walwyn.

A ‘turn-up’ religious text was one of the earlier, rarer and more expensive items in a Somerset sale.

Jeff Day was born in Weston-super-Mare in 1952 and grew up in Somerset.

Deemed a little ostentatious in some circles, tiaras have enjoyed a surge in popularity in recent years, particularly in Russia and the Baltic states where jeans and a diamond fascinator are de rigueur at informal high-society events.