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What are the strangest lots to come up for auction in the weird and wonderful world of antiques?
What’s the strangest thing you have ever seen at auction? I was asked the other day. A good question, but difficult to answer after several decades in the job.
Thinking back, though, several items stand out – not necessarily ones that passed through my hands, but nevertheless memorable.
The New Patent Exploding Trench was one. A Great War toy produced briefly by Britains, it involved a wooden and fabric trench loaded with six lead riflemen of the Gloucestershire Regiment. When hit, a specially placed flagstaff set off a cap, which made a loud report, shaking the trench and “killing” the soldiers. Why a British factory should have put British soldiers rather than the enemy in the trench is anyone’s guess, but it was a marketing disaster, and the toy was soon withdrawn. The result? A rare collectable that has made a decent four-figure sum in the two or three times it has appeared at auction over the past 20 years.
Perhaps the most chilling thing I have seen was not at auction but at a restoration firm. What looked like a framed piece of parchment turned out to be a collection of tattoos cut from the bodies of French soldiers in the field of Waterloo. Now who would want to buy that?
Almost as chilling – and certainly intriguing – is the Fiji Mermaid. This has its origins among Japanese fishermen, who sewed parts of different animals together to create chimera – in this case the head and arms of a monkey sewn to the body and tail of a fish.
They first came to Western notice after the captain of an American ship, thinking it a real creature, bought one from Japanese sailors in the early 19th century for thousands of dollars. The great American showman PT Barnum displayed it as a curiosity in the 1840s.
As a trip to Wikipedia will attest, Barnum understood how to generate publicity, writing to the newspapers under various pseudonyms on the subject of the Fiji Mermaid and creating a ruse whereby his associate booked into a Philadelphia hotel, secretly showing the creature to the manager, who then insisted on spreading the word and staging a display to a select audience, including journalists.
Probably destroyed in a fire around 20 years later, by then the legend had caught on and many copies were made. Look it up on Google images and see one for yourself.
Each example is usually named after the town in whose museum it now rests.
Beyond the religious, Easter recalls the fabulous works of the inimitable Peter Carl Fabergé
As Easter approaches, it reminds me of one of my favourite dreams: being asked to go through the boxes of a client’s attic to see if anything emerges that might be worth selling and coming across a Fabergé egg.
These jewels are among the most famous luxury items ever produced.
The first of several dozen of these jewel-encrusted eggs (around 70 are thought to have been made of which 61 are known to have survived) was commissioned as an Easter gift for the Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna by her husband, Tsar Alexander III, in 1885.
The House of Fabergé was established in St Peterburg in 1842, the celebrated eggs being the invention of Peter Carl Fabergé. The first, known as the Hen Egg, is an enamel shell surrounded by a gold band that opens to reveal a golden yolk. That opens too and is found to conceal a golden hen perched on golden straw. Rather like the Russian Babushka dolls, the hen itself then opens to reveal a miniature replica of a diamond Imperial crown and a ruby pendant.
Unfortunately, the crown and ruby pendant have since been lost, but the egg must have created quite a stir when first presented. We know this because such was the Tsarina’s delight that within weeks Fabergé had been awarded a royal warrant.
To make the following orders even more of a surprise, it is thought that Fabergé gave no clue even to the Tsar as to what the eggs would look like. Fabergé himself would oversee the design before handing the creation of the eggs over to a team of craftsmen, whose names have passed down through history as a result.
When Alexander’s son Nicholas II ascended the throne, he continued the tradition of presenting eggs as Easter gifts, both to his own wife, Alexandra Feodorovna, and his mother, the Dowager Empress. In all, they received fifty eggs between them, inspiring further commissions for Fabergé eggs from the Rothschild family and the Duchess of Marlborough, among others.
The Russian Revolution of 1917 put an end to the St Petersburg workshop, with the Fabergé family leaving Russia. More than a century on, the eggs sit at the centre of an impressive output of stunning silver, gold and jewelled pieces that continue to change hands at auction for stupendous sums.
I’ll keep my fingers crossed next time I’m asked to rummage through a few old boxes.
Collectors still clamour for Royal mementos – our regal heritage has an understandably enduring appeal
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.
Following your heart and your collecting desire can prove fruitful when it comes to Valentine’s Day
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.