First World War sweetheart brooch for HMS Grasshopper sold at Woolley & Wallis for £400.
Despite the name, they were given to parents, children and sisters as well as wives or girlfriends.
The brooches often came in the form of a regimental badge or service crest. However, a more unusual design was on offer at Salisbury saleroom Woolley & Wallis (25% buyer’s premium) in the Fine Jewellery sale on November 1 estimated at £200-300: a Royal Navy gold and enamel brooch for HMS Grasshopper, pictured above, mounted with a realistic gold grasshopper with green enamel decoration and diamond eye, dated below 1915.
Grasshopper was one of 16 ‘Beagle-class’ destroyers launched at Fairfield in 1909 and served in the Gallipoli Campaign. She was sold for breaking up on November 1, 1921. The brooch made £400.
