Auction Reports

More glamorous sales will take place this year, but a week of four quality auctions at Lawrences (22% buyer’s premium) of Crewkerne provided some solid reassurance about the state of the middle market.

Evidence of the shrewd taste of student entertainments officers at Warwick University back in the Sixties came at Batemans’ (20% buyer’s premium) sale at Stamford in the form of two concert posters.

Promoted as including the contents from a Derbyshire country home, the three-day pre-Christmas sale at Hansons (17.5% buyer’s premium) was more notable for two unusual collections and pieces which came in after a valuation day.

Two of the first sales of 2018 suggest that toasts to the future can be drunk from half-full, rather than half-empty, Georgian rummers.

Four unusual collections caught the eye, if not always the cash, at Woolley & Wallis (25% buyer's premium).

“Buyers want to get back in action after the Christmas holiday,” said Darryl Kirk, saleroom manager at Unique Auctions (17.5% buyer’s premium), after 95% of the 1300 lots offered on New Year’s Day got away.

On the basis that it’s never too late for chocolate, or indeed beer, a belated report from BBR’s (15% buyer’s premium) sale of advertising memorabilia at Elsecar.

This ‘Goliath’ carriage clock, below, was offered at Greenslade Taylor Hunt (19.5% buyer’s premium) in Taunton.

Good times ahead were predicted by Guy Schooling, chairman of Sworders (23% buyer’s premium), after the January 9 Homes & Interiors sale at Stansted Mountfitchet which was topped by a WAS Benson brass mantel clock.

Must-have Christmas presents in the Sixties and Seventies, Sasha dolls have remarkable appeal today.

The studio ceramics offered at the Mallams Oxford (20% buyer’s premium) Design, Modern British and Post-War Art sale were the major talking point (see ATG No 2324), but furniture by major late 19th century and early 20th century makers also made an impact.

Second World War technology starred at Tennants’ (20% buyer’s premium) militaria sale at Leyburn.

A gentleman retires to his designated smoker’s chair, picks up his meerschaum pipe and Dunhill lighter and puffs away contentedly by his hearth… a vanished scenario in the UK today but recreated in the antiques world in these three items from December auctions.

Whatever chaos faces hundreds of thousands of commuters on the railways as we enter the New Year, the better-ordered world of model trains steams on to continued success.

More Channel Islands silver to add to over 250 pieces dispersed as part of the Paint collection at Martel Maides earlier this year came to auction recently.

The season, the spirit in question and the location of the sale put this bottle of Lagavulin whisky, below, into the spotlight.

Two pre-Christmas sales, one at Woolley & Wallis (22% buyer’s premium) in Salisbury and one at Mallams (20% buyer’s premium) in Oxford, highlighted the move of studio pottery from esoteric niche into the mainstream market.

The inaugural Design at Home sale, put together by Mark Hill for Dawson’s (20% buyer’s premium) in Maidenhead, included a trio of pieces by ‘hot glass’ pioneer Sam Herman (b.1936).

Clocks from England’s ‘Golden Age’ provided highlights at two early December sales.

Unsigned, but breathing the name of one of the leaders of the Arts & Crafts movement in Scotland, this enamel panel and unmarked silver brooch sold for £5500 at Greenslade Taylor Hunt (19.5% buyer’s premium) in Taunton.