Jul 14, 2025
This time of year is what the media call the Silly Season, traditionally a period when news is thin on the ground and reporters will file copy on bizarre tales that wouldn’t normally make it into print. They do this because many newspapers and news websites are working on skeleton staff during the holidays and are under more pressure to fill the space available. It’s an ideal time to look out for articles on the weird and wonderful things that have sold at auction.
I recently trawled through the archives with this in mind and here are a few of things I came up with:
- William Shatner’s kidney stone. That’s right, in 2006 the Starship Enterprise’s former Captain Kirk raised $25,000 for charity with this tasteless offering.
- A grandmother. Ten-year-old Zoe Pemberton put her grandma, Marion Goodall, up for auction on eBay in 2010. The site shut the sale down when the price reached £20,000.
- Lee Harvey Oswald’s coffin. After JFK’s assassin was exhumed in 1981 to check that a body double had not been buried in his place, he was reburied in a new coffin. The original one fetched nearly $90,000.
- New Zealand. In 2006 an Australian man set a starting pricing of one Australian cent for the country. eBay also closed down this sale… when bidding reached Aus$3,000.
While it may be the Silly Season, it is also the approach of the Grouse Season. This is an area of pheasant shoots, and while those ready to take aim will have to wait until October 1 for that, August 12 is the start of the Red Grouse season.
While blasting birds out of the sky has never been my passion, the paintings of game birds by Archibald Thorburn are. His depictions of pheasant, grouse and ptarmigan are pre-eminent among British bird painters of the past century, as prices at auction will confirm. A decent watercolour of any of these birds in a moorland setting will have no problem encouraging bids up to the £25,000 mark.
Collectors have long taken aim at Thorburn, but I suppose he really came into his own when the popularity of shooting spread from the landed gentry to commercial shoots in the 1980s.
Born the son of a miniaturist painter who worked for Queen Victoria near Edinburgh in 1860, Thorburn had little to no formal training except for a brief stint at art school in St John’s Wood. What really set him on the road to his life’s work was a stroke of luck. In 1887 when the Dutch artist J.G. Keulemans fell ill, Thorburn took over the commission from Lord Lilford of Northampton to complete the illustrations for the seven-volume Coloured Figures of the Birds of the British Islands. By the time he finished his career had taken flight.
Jun 19, 2025
John Nicholson’s will be running a Valuation Day on Wednesday 30 July between 10am-3pm at:
The Grange Community and Leisure Centre,
Bepton Road
Midhurst
West Sussex
GU29 9HD
Bring your collectables, pictures, gold, silver, watches and valuables to be consigned to auction – gold and silver currently selling at record high values.
For further information, please contact Andrew Swain on 01428 653727 or sales@johnnicholsons.com
Jun 17, 2025
I have just completed a Q&A for a trade magazine, and it made me think, once again, of how the public view not just auctions but the wider art and antiques trade. While there are still a few people running cobweb-ridden, cluttered shops in country backwaters, where the stock seems to have been there from new, don’t make the mistake of thinking that auction houses and dealers are still living in the Dark Ages.
The auction process is both more complicated and exciting than retail, and that means we must have technology that is able to do a lot more than just complete a customer’s order online.
Live bidding, previewing lots for sale with multiple images, registering bidders from dozens of different countries, fulfilling our obligations under due diligence and other regulations means we must be at the top of our game all the time.
I’m delighted to say that this is as much a young man and woman’s game these days.
The excitement of buying and selling, collecting and doing deals knows no barrier when it comes to age or generation. It’s just the things that we choose to trade in that change over the years.
Thinking about this, it never ceases to amaze me how what are, frankly, in my opinion a series of unattractive daubs flung together in the name of Contemporary art can make millions at auction when highly accomplished and rather beautiful Victorian landscapes can be had for buttons.
I suppose that fashions change and, with them, tastes. Don’t get me wrong, I think a great deal of Modern and Contemporary art has a lot to offer, but it is also rife with mountebanks. However, the flipside of what has been a rather subdued market for late Victorian and Edwardian painting is that you can pick up stunning art for very little indeed.
Just browsing through one of the online auction platforms the other day, I worked out that, with a fair wind behind me, I could fill a whole wall with stunning Victorian and Edwardian watercolours for less than £2,000. Some of the pictures looked a bit tired, but closer inspection revealed that they simply needed a new mount and frame, and at these prices this was very much a realistic option.
I have no idea whether art like this will enjoy a renaissance in years to come – although it certainly deserves to – but those cherry picking now will be in the best position to capitalise if it does. And if prices remain in the doldrums, well they will have a fantastic selection of art gracing their walls, which they will never tire of.
Jun 16, 2025
John Nicholson’s are seeking a SALEROOM TRAINEE.
Although no formal qualifications are required for this position, you must be able to contribute to work which involves reasonable physical lifting.
Other qualities required:
– Driver (full clean licence)
– IT literate
– Good telephone manner
– Available to work at least one Saturday per month
Please send your cv in the first instance to Phil Hildreth at phil.hildreth@johnnicholsons.com
Jun 12, 2025
An exceptionally rare Louis Vuitton wardrobe steamer trunk dating from the 1920s or earlier sold for £130,000 hammer at John Nicholson’s on June 11.
Although the metal covering identified it as possibly one of the limited number of hermetic Explorer trunks of the period, the interior was all but gutted, and the trunk had been used as a toolbox for many years by the consignor who had no idea of what it was.
Louis Vuitton revolutionised the travel trunk, ignoring the curved tops of earlier trunks that allowed water run-off because they could not be stacked for storage.
His flat-topped trunks became hugely popular and the Explorer was covered in zinc, copper, brass or aluminium to cope with the singular challenges of tropical climates.
The company made just a few of these, and all in 1892, although released later. The 44 x 22 x 21½in wardrobe steamer trunk at John Nicholson’s Fernhurst rooms can be dated to the early 1920s or earlier thanks to its unique serial number, 748929. It was missing the paper label and almost all the internal fittings, though those that remained identified it as a double hanging wardrobe trunk rather that one with a chest of drawers to one side.
The surviving central catch is engraved with the Louis Vuitton name, Champs Elysée and the original London address of the company, 149 New Bond Street, opened in 1900 and closed in 2010 when the store moved across the road.
