Apr 12, 2022
One of the constant debates of the wider art and antiques industry is just how good/bad/useful the daytime TV programmes are that focus on auctions, dealers and fairs.
It’s a close call in many cases. There can be no doubt that the plethora of programmes emerging over the past 20 years or so, many in a gameshow format, have sparked a great deal of interest in what we do. The raised public consciousness can only be a good thing if it means more people coming into the saleroom to see what it’s all about or having a go at bidding online.
I particularly like it when the presenters take a bit of a break from the main proceedings to interview a passionate collector or focus on a specialist area of collecting.
I’m less keen when it comes to the artificial hype introduced to bolster the gameshow experience and onscreen buzz. That’s because it has often come at the price of authenticity. The worst of this is when presenters talk about the profits made from buying and selling, but without taking account of the costs incurred along the way.
Things have generally got better on that front in recent years as formats acknowledge the public’s increasing interest and knowledge around auctions.
The much-maligned BBC – 100 this year – can take a bow here, having fostered the cream of the crop in the Antiques Roadshow for almost half of its lifetime.
Apr 5, 2022
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, a number of items stand out – not necessarily ones that passed through my hands, but nevertheless memorable. The New Patent Exploding Trench was one. A WW1 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soldiers rather than the enemy in the trench is anyone’s guess, but is was a marketing disaster and the toy was soon withdrawn.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?
Some of the most surprising and superb things appear when people bring things in for valuation. Like the Boys Scouts, we are always prepared for what is presented to us!
Mar 28, 2022
What is the most valuable item sold at auction for its size? One piece that might like to stake a claim is the Pokémon card that has just sold for $420,000. No larger than an ordinary playing card, the rare 1999 Pokémon Base Set Shadowless 1st Edition Holo Charizard card is the holy grail for Pokémon collectors.
“What makes the card so unique is its perfect PSA 10 Gem Mint grading. Even though there are 3,000 copies of the card, only 121 have been given that designation, according to PWCC,” reports CNN.
It may be a large sum for so slight an object, but it comes nowhere near the record. At least two other items beat it hands down.
The first is the rather smaller (around half the Pokémon card’s size) Honus Wagner baseball card that took $6.6 million at an online auction in August last year. Long considered the most desirable of all baseball cards, it passed the $5.2 million paid for a Micky Mantle rookie card just seven months earlier.
However, even this pales into insignificance compared with the price paid for the world’s most valuable stamp: the British Guiana One-Cent Magenta, reputedly the only one left. Whether by weight or size (29 x 26mm), at $8.3 million (£6.2 million), its sale to Stanley Gibbons in July 2021 gives it a value of just over £2 million per square inch.
But wait; as far back as December 2007, the 5,000-year-old limestone carving dubbed the Guennol Lioness, a startlingly modern looking 3¼in high figure, took $57.2 million (then £28.9 million) at Sotheby’s. That’s £8.9 million per vertical inch.
Mar 21, 2022
As anyone who visits our Fernhurst saleroom on a regular basis will know, working in the auction business is more of a vocation than a job. Days off are few and far between and even when they do come round, you always have your eye open for a business opportunity. It can be a bit of an obsession, and it’s not long before you realize that no matter how hard you try to relax, you are never really off duty.
I have even found myself, while on holiday, turning over the cups and saucers in tearooms to check the maker’s marks in the hope of a major discovery.
The upside of all this is that having spent several decades seeking out consignments before dispersing them from the rostrum, the excitement of uncovering something special and then making sure I do the owner proud when selling it is as thrilling today as ever. That thrill of the chase is what also drives dealers and collectors, to a great degree, as well as the desire to handle and own something of rare quality and craftsmanship.
One of the most interesting aspects of the job comes on valuation days, when we have no idea what people will bring in for assessment. Occasionally this leads to the discovery of a real gem!
Like any business, we suffer dull days and disappointment, but I can’t think of anything else I would rather be doing.
Mar 14, 2022
We all like solving puzzles because of the intrigue, drama, journey of discovery and sense of achievement. Perhaps that’s why so many cop series and whodunnits make it onto the small screen.
Perhaps, too, that’s why the treasure hunt nature of so many antiques programmes has thrived over the years.
If you think about it, collectors, dealers and auction house specialists are all detectives in their own way, seeking out the history and associations of objects, looking for clues as to who made them and how, and also identifying characteristics and qualities that affect value.
Sometimes it can be the apparently most insignificant piece of information that unlocks the secret.
I can remember being asked to identify the exact location of the view on a vintage postcard. The owner, who was selling an album of these views at auction, knew the area well but simply could not recognise the view depicted, which did not appear to go with the caption.
I studied it for about five minutes. In the foreground of the view was a river. Then I noticed that rowing boats tethered to the far bank were all drifting in the same direction, which, of course, would mean downstream. That was the key. Knowing the area myself and which way the river flowed, I realised that the photograph had been taken from the opposite bank and that the location being described in the caption was actually behind the photographer and across from the view in the photograph.
It might not have been the discovery of the century, or resulted in a fortune being made, but the sense of excitement and satisfaction at solving the riddle was just as palpable.
This is the sort of careful approach we need to take when making valuations on behalf of clients or drawing up catalogue descriptions.
Mar 7, 2022
March 3 marked a little-known but hugely important event: the 160th anniversary of the start of the Second Opium War, when France and the UK declared against China. It arose from British Imperialism, unsatisfied by the 1842 settlement under the Treaty of Nanking, which ceded Hong Kong to the British under lease and opened up five treaty ports to ease trade in opium, cheap Chinese labour – ‘coolies’ as they were then known – and improve diplomatic relations.
Chinese acts of aggression against the British in the interim had also not helped, and the French soon joined the British after the Chinese executed a leading French missionary.
The Indian Mutiny in May 1857 meant British troops had to be diverted from China, which delayed any outcome, but the Qing government could not sustain an effective defence as it also had to deal with the long-running Taiping Rebellion.
The cruel torture and murder of the British envoy Harry Parkes, and his entourage, led to the revenge sack and burning of the Summer Palaces in Beijing, from where many valuable works of art made their way abroad. Later legal sales of Chinese treasures have muddied the waters over what was looted and what exported legally, but together explain why so many amazing pieces have emerged at auction in London and Paris over the past few years.
Feb 28, 2022
Some evidence has just emerged of Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs) proving to be the Emperor’s New Clothes (ENC), as I suspected them to be.Apparently Sotheby’s, who expected to take $5.5 million at auction for a collection of CryptoPunks (me neither) sold as a single lot had to withdraw it at the last moment.According to the consignor (named as 0x650d) The Punk It! Sale, as it was christened, had fallen victim to a cyber scam, whereby the developers had made off with the digital assets, leaving the investors high and dry. “Nvm, decided to hodl,” he is reported as tweeting, adding even more cryptic content to this crypto crash.
A further comment suggested that this was an ‘event’ to embarrass the auction house for trying to take ‘punks’ mainstream – i.e. the traditional auction world trying to cash in on this cutting edge digital money spinner. Banksy was the first to do this with his automatic shredding of a work at the moment it sold for an eye-watering sum. However, in Banksy’s case, this just made the picture more desirable and it sold for considerably more in it shredded state some time later.
If, as at least one pundit put it, the ‘hodl’ turns out to be fatal to the CryptoPunks craze, I shall be weeping no tears. Expertise is important at auction for good reason and those who dabble in things they are not sufficiently appraised of are likely to get their fingers burnt.
Time for some paintings and fine antiques, I think!
Feb 21, 2022
What looks like one of the most exciting exhibitions in years has now opened at the British Museum: The World of Stonehenge.
The exhibition plays on the mystery surrounding this 5,000-year-old structure and sets it in historical context: “Shrouded in layers of speculation and folklore, this iconic British monument has spurred myths and legends that persist today,” the blurb states. “In this special exhibition, the British Museum will reveal the secrets of Stonehenge, shining a light on its purpose, cultural power and the people that created.”
Along with Jack the Ripper and the disappearance of Lord Lucan, the nature and purpose of Stonehenge as well as the identity of those who built it, remains one of the most enduring myths to capture widespread public attention.
The BM sets out to tell that story in the way it knows best, by through a variety of stunning objects, such as stone axes from the North Italian Alps, stunning gold jewellery and astonishing examples of early metalwork. Best of all is the Nebra Sky Disc, a 12 inch bronze disc that is the world’s oldest surviving map of the stars.
The exhibition also unveils Seahenge, a remarkably preserved 4,000-year-old timber circle, on loan for the very first time.
“All these objects offer important clues about the beliefs, rituals, and complex worldview of Neolithic people, helping to build a vivid sense of life for Europe’s earliest ancestors.”
My favourite fact about Stonehenge, though, is that in 1915 it was sold at auction for £6,600. That purchase guaranteed its future as a public monument.
Feb 14, 2022
A lot of talk in our industry has recently focused on the acceleration of auctions moving online, and there’s no doubt about it, the internet has been the biggest game changer over the past twenty years, never more so since the pandemic started.
The move online has also meant that even fairly modest auction houses in the more remote parts of the UK have gained access to global audiences, to the extent that any half decent sale can now expect to attract bids from upwards of fifty countries.
This has been a boon to our industry and has undoubtedly made selling your belongings at auction a more attractive prospect as demand and prices rise.
As someone who has spent decades on the rostrum, though, I firmly believe that the live selling experience, with bidders in the room, will always play an important part in the process. This is partially because it offers auction houses an unrivalled opportunity to show what they can do in person, while for the visitor, whether they are bidding, bringing something in to be valued, or simply enjoying a browse through what is coming up for sale, a visit to an auction house always provides a memorable and enjoyable outing.
The thrill of coming across something you love at a view is definitely more acute in person than online. The opportunity to talk to a specialist and chat about art and objects when they know so much about them is a rewarding experience that does not come across in the same way via an email exchange. All in all, it can be a grand day out.
So by all means, please keep bidding online, but why not pop along and inspect the goods in person before the next sale or, better still, bring in something you are thinking of selling for a valuation.
Feb 7, 2022
Did it come from space? Can it really be one billion years old? No wonder this extraordinary gem, weighing about as much as a banana, is called The Enigma.
At 555.55 carats, the ancient black rock coming up for sale at auction is said to be the largest cut diamond in the world, with 55 faces, and is expected to sell for more than £4.4 million as I write.
It is certainly a phenomenon and one of the oldest items ever to come up for auction, although it is a mere youngster compared with the four billion-year-old meteorite that sold at auction in 2017 for a rather more modest £14,000.
As is widely known, diamond is one of the toughest substances known to man, having been forged deep within the Earth’s crust under intense heat and pressure so that the carbon atoms crystallise.
They are rare because so many of them remain hundreds of kilometres beneath the surface, although some emerge via magma.
Even rarer is the carbonado, black diamonds like this one that are especially tough and have only been found in Brazil and the Central African Republic.
So if diamonds are forged
In the bowels of the Earth, how come they think this one came from outer space?
Apparently it is because it also contains osbornite, or titanium nitride, a mineral so far found only in meteors. Perhaps, though, the osbornite was captured by the bubbling early planet when a meteorite crashed into it, then was transformed into the carbonado as the crust cooled and processed it. If so, The Enigma is documentary evidence of our home world’s earliest days.
