Auction offers a sign of the times

IT’S not so much a sign of the Times, as a sign of all the daily newspapers. And at Cirencester auction house Moore Allen & Innocent on Friday an advertising sign for high street stationers W H Smith sold for an unexpected £550 – around 10 times its modest estimate.
 
The enamelled sign depicting a newspaper boy with daily newspapers in wicker tray was one of a larger collection of early 20th century advertising signs to go under the hammer on Friday, September 10. A Pyn-ka polishing tablet advertisement made £120, a Chocolat Menier sign achieved £80 and a Probyn’s Guinness Stout sign sold for £55.
 
Auctioneer Philip Allwood recalled that back in March a larger sign of similar design, complete with its wrought iron hanging bracket and in far better condition had sold for £360. “It just goes to prove the auctioneers’ adage that something is worth what two people are willing to pay for it,” he said.
 
It wasn’t by any means the most expensive lot of the day, though. The highest price was achieved by a Victorian mahogany partner’s desk, which sold for £1,550 against an estimate of £500 to £700.
 
In fact 19 of the top 25 prices of the day were made by furniture. Among the most interesting were a late 20th Century Cotswold Arts & Crafts oak and burr elm cabinet by Derek Elliot of Southrop, which sold for £780, and a Cotswold Arts and Crafts rectangular oak dining table by the same craftsman, which achieved £500.
 
Outside of the furniture section, a 198cm by 128cm mustard coloured Persian rug with blue border made £630, A Regency mahogany mantel clock the circular painted dial inscribed Robt Haswell, London sold for £380, a late 19th Century French gilt brass and champleve enamel carriage clock made £340 and a pair of daggers – one with an ivorine grip and brass hilt housed in a leather scabbard, the other with carved ebony grip housed in a metal banded scabbard – achieved £580.
 
Auctioneers said that overall the sale results were excellent. There were 953 lots being sold on behalf of 203 vendors, with 219 successful bidders ensuring a sale rate of 90 percent of lots.
 
More importantly, the canteen – renowned for selling one of the best bacon butties on the antiques circuit – ran out of food. Now that’sa sign of the times.
 
The next sale at Moore Allen & Innocent’s Cirencester saleroom will be the selected antique sale on Friday, September 24.
 
And there will be a chance to meet Philip Allwood and his team at the NSPCC Country House Car Boot Sale at the National Trust’s Sherbourne Park Estate grounds at Lodge Park on Sunday, September 26.
 
The event, of which Moore Allen & Innocent is a sponsor, boasts 150 vendors and is by invitation only. For more information visit www.nspcc.org.uk/carboot

Probyn’s Guiness sign	Pyn-Ka sign