John Nicholson’s are seeking a typist with flexible weekly hours to type auction catalogues.
Please send your cv in the first instance to Phil Hildreth.
Email: PhilHildreth@johnnicholsons.com
Please only apply if you have relevant experience
No agencies
John Nicholson’s are seeking an experienced specialist for valuing and cataloguing consignments for our monthly auctions. Must have very good knowledge of Islamic and Oriental collectables and artefacts, and also needs to display a portfolio of clients.
Please send your your CV in the first instance to Phil Hildreth.
Email: phil.hildreth@johnnicholsons.com
Please only apply if you have relevant experience
No agencies
Easter Monday falls on April 21 this year. It also happens to be the birthday of our late Queen. Elizabeth II, a reminder, if one was needed, of the rich Royal heritage we enjoy. If there’s one thing we Brits do better than anyone else it is fostering our great Royal tradition, not just with pageantry and our recognition of the symbolic importance of the monarchy, but also in producing all the colourful memorabilia that goes with it.
I still own my 1977 Silver Jubilee mug, a rather tasteful design compared with some others that have emerged down the years, and a healthy market remains for all sorts of rarities, from the Victorian era and beyond – although they go back much further.
When Her Majesty turned 90 in 2016, The Royal Mint unveiled another birthday coin to mark the occasion, while mugs, plates, tea towels and any number of other collectables are already on sale. Various commemorative mugs are already on offer, ranging in price from around £8 to £25.
King Charles III’s Coronation produced another flurry of activity, and in this era of digital payments it was, if anything, even more exciting to see the newly unveiled coins and banknotes featuring His Majesty’s bust.
When it comes to Royal memorabilia – particularly coins and notes – mass production has dampened price rises over the years unless you manage to get your hands on something that has a printing or other error, making it a rarity. The real money is in items with a very personal connection to a royal personage, such as a lock of hair in a locket. Highly personalised Princess Diana memorabilia remains among the most sought after almost 30 years after her tragic death. Who can forget the eye-watering prices raised for her frocks – especially the one in which she danced with John Travolta at the White House (£264,000).
Of particular interest are hand-written letters, especially from the late Princess and particularly if they are linked to historic occasions or shed light on behind-the-scenes lives of the royals.
Even wedding cake makes the grade; £30,000 was paid for a slice of Edward VIII’s wedding cake in 1998, 62 years after the event. Of course his was the marriage that cost him the throne, so it would have been of even more historic importance than perhaps any other.
When you consider that chocolates and flowers are the most frequently chosen Valentine gifts, it’s a little surprising that a whole collecting field dedicated to this theme exists. After all, chocolates and flowers don’t last long, so what is there on the vintage and antique front to collect?
The most obvious answer is Valentine’s cards, which date back to the 1600s at least.
At the time these were almost always handmade.
The Museum of London has a collection of more than 1700 Valentine’s cards, but the oldest known printed examples, dating to 1797, can be found in York Castle Museum. Hand-painted and pierced to produce a lace effect, it is decorated with cupids, doves and flowers.
The printer was John Fairburn, of 146, Minories, London, and it was printed with a month to spare on January 12.
Printed around the swags of flowers that frame the design are the words:
Since on this ever Happy day,
All Nature’s full of Love and Play
Yet harmless still if my design,
’Tis but to be your Valentine.
It captures a moment in time from the devoted Catherine Mossday, writing to the intriguingly anonymous Mr Brown of Dover Place, Kent, Road, London.
The rather frustrated Miss Mossday tells her intended:
As I have repeatedly requested you to come I think you must have some reason for not complying with my request, but as I have something particular to say to you I could wish you make it all agreeable to come on Sunday next without fail and in doing you will oblige your well wisher.
Half a century on from Miss Mossday’s plaintive missive, by mid Victorian times, the Valentine industry in Britain was so huge that it is thought the public spent hundreds of millions of pounds a year on cards and gifts for their loved ones. Today it is well over £1.5 billion in the UK and around $15 billion in the United States – equivalent to around a quarter of the sales for the entire global art market in a year!
Elaborate cards decorated with lace and ribbons – and even some with moving parts – demanded a considerable outlay on the part of the purchaser. Most popular were the ‘marionette’ cards, with their paper dolls with moving limbs, created by Raphael Tuck, who worked under Royal Warrant.
Celebrated artists and illustrators of the day were drafted in to create designs which collectors seek out now, among them children’s author Kate Greenaway.
John Nicholson’s will be holding a valuation day on Friday 21 March between 10.30am-3.30pm at:
Haslemere Museum
78 High Street
Haslemere
GU27 2LA
Please bring in your pictures, silver, porcelain, jewellery, etc. which we will be glad to value and put into our forthcoming sales (if the item itself is too big to bring in, please bring a good image of it on a smartphone or tablet).
For any enquiries, please contact us on 01428 653737 or sales@johnnicholsons.com
