Aug 16, 2017
BUYING SECTION – PAYMENTS
Following the introduction of new regulations in June 2017, we are required to conduct identification checks where customers wish to pay in cash for purchases of 10,000 Euros or more. For ease of understanding and to allow for currency fluctuation, we will value the amount to be equivalent to £7000 (GBP). The regulations state that when we accept payments at this value or over it is compulsory for us to ask for documents proving the buyer’s identity. Acceptable documents are either a ‘Photo Driving Licence’ or ‘Passport’. When producing these documents they must be originals, not copies.
Note: these regulations apply to CASH transactions only!
Cheques are accepted only by prior arrangement, and purchases paid with cheque will only be released on clearance through our bank.
You may pay with cash below £7000 (€10,000), cheque (only accepted upon prior arrangement), credit and debit cards, wire transfer or banker’s draft. Please note that as from January 13, 2018, we no longer charge a handling fee of 2% on credit card transactions. Debit cards incur no extra charge. Credit or debit card payments must be made in person unless prior arrangements have been agreed upon. For further details contact the office. You must pay for your purchase immediately after the sale. All funds must be cleared before goods are released. We request that all purchases are collected immediately after the sale. If you require us to store the items for you, this can be arranged for a fee with a member of staff.
Aug 15, 2017
What a fantastic turnout we had last Saturday. The saleroom was so busy that we had to write on more paddles so that everyone who wanted to, could bid! The big draw was the collection of pots and garden furniture we had taken from a house clearance in Wimbledon. The timing was spot on to meet the demands of those who wanted to spruce up their gardens. Added to which, the weather was being kind and most items found a new home. Please keep spreading the word about us and we can continue to offer up more of these quality items. Our next sale will be a general sale on August 26th (bank holiday weekend). Put it in your diary!
Aug 15, 2017
The recent auction of a famous photo of Albert Einstein (the one where he is sticking out his tongue from 1951) reminds me of the apocryphal tale of his lecture tour of the US on Relativity. Throughout the tour the great scientific genius employed the same chauffeur, who would sit at the back of the lecture hall each night waiting for his employer to finish before driving him back to his hotel.
After a while, the chauffeur told Einstein that he had heard the lecture so many times he believed he would be able to deliver it himself. Einstein decided to let him take up the challenge, knowing that their next stop was a place where he was not well known and so it was possible no one would guess that they had swapped roles.
Sure enough, on the night, the chauffeur took to the stage and completed the lecture without anyone being the wiser. Meanwhile Einstein took a quiet nap at the back of the lecture hall posing as the chauffeur.
However, just as the real chauffeur was leaving the stage, a research student asked him a very complex question to which he did not know the answer. Thinking quickly, he said: “The answer to that question is so simple that I am going to let my chauffeur answer it for me.” Now that’s genius.
Aug 10, 2017
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.
Aug 3, 2017
This week I want to return to the tragedy of the First World War because July 31 marked the centenary of the beginning of the Battle of Passchandaele.
Also known as the Third Battle of Ypres, it lasted just over three months and remains one of the most controversial offensives of the entire conflict, partially because British leaders could not agree on whether it was the right thing to do strategically and partially because the dire weather as the battle progressed made the already horrifying and miserable life in the trenches all the more unbearable. The Germans lost 217,000 troops, while the allied forces of British, French, Belgian, Canadian, Australian, Indian and South African suffered around 245,000 dead and wounded between them.
Lloyd George, the prime minister, deemed it “one of the greatest disasters of the war”. Others had wanted Field Marshall Haig to hold back until the Americans arrived at the front. The poet Siegfried Sasson wrote : “I died in Hell. They called it Passchendaele.”
For me, though, its legacy includes a wonderful reminder about how man can create something powerful and positive out of the worst experience. That reminder is the art by the likes of Paul Nash, CRW Nevinson and others, showing shell bursts, the wounded and suffering of those at the front in the battle – art that continues to command high prices at auction today, and acts as a warning to us about what we must avoid in future.
