New career for 2011 - become an apothecary!

WITH the seasonal bouts of cold and flu doing the rounds, anyone looking for a fresh career opportunity in 2011 could do worse than going into medicine.

Luckily, antiques auctioneers Moore Allen & Innocent, in Cirencester, have everything budding apothecaries will need to get started – barring any formal medical qualifications, of course.

When a Morstadt cachet maker came into the auction room, auctioneer Philip Allwood was the first to admit he didn't know what the brass contraption with 48 holes in two lids folded over a brass base was.

An advertisement from 1896, which pictured the device, didn't help. The blurb, in typical Victorian bluster, promised 'Universal Satisfaction' and 'Countless Testimonials' and boasted the apparatus was 'Unapproached especially as regards Speed and Simplicity of Manipulation'.

But the spiel didn't go far as to explain what the piece of equipment actually did, although two minutes on the internet revealed it was a mould and press for making pills.

The ingenious device comes with a boxed set of metallic medicine weights – ranging from a brass kilo to slivers of metal weighing next to nothing – and a collection of thirty-plus glass medicine bottles. A bid of £50 to £80 should secure the collection.

The scales haven't been forgotten either. A late Victorian brass boxed set carries a modest estimate of £20 to £30, while our budding physician can investigate symptoms with an ear, nose and throat examination device, dating from the 1930s to 1950s, with an estimate of £20 to £30.

Completing the set, and giving our quack an air of medical authority, is a reproduction of L N Fowler's phrenological bust, popular in the heyday of this pseudoscience from 1820 to 1840.

The theory is that physical and mental attributes are governed by specific parts of the brain, and that examination of the skull can explain personality traits. The bust – with an estimate of £20 to £30 – is a map of where the personality traits can be found as lumps and bumps on the skull. With it, even a beginner in phrenology can establish a subject's sense of justice, integrity or time.

Happily, no great sense of time is needed at the auction room, where not one but four long case clocks while away the hours.

They include a 18th century oak cased clock with 30-hour movement and a moon face on the dial, by Thomas Hardwick of Ridgemount (estimate £300 to £500), an early 19th century example in mahogany, decorated on the face with a ho ho bird and the legend 'Tempus Fugit' or 'time flies' (estimate £400 to £600), a George III mahogany cased clock with a painted panel of a galleon above the clock face by William Newby of Kendal (estimate £500 to £700), and a 19th century oak cased clock by John Evan of Aberystwyth, which carries an estimate of £300 to £400.

Also long, thin and turning heads in the furniture section is a modern dining table and 10 chairs by the renowned furniture maker Stewart Linford of High Wycombe, whose customers include the Queen and other members of the royal family.

At first glance, the minimalist, contemporary set, in black ash, has been inspired by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, especially the latticework of the high-backed chairs. The chair legs, however, borrow heavily from the arts and crafts movement while the dished-style seat sits firmly in the 1800s, design-wise.

The dining set is accompanied by two matching cabinets, each with three cupboards and three drawers. A bid of £500 to £700 could secure the lot.

The auction starts at 10am on Friday, January 21 at Moore Allen & Innocent in Cirencester. A full auction catalogue is available online at www.mooreallen.co.uk/furniturefinearts

Antique medical equipment	A modern dining table and 10 chairs by the renowned furniture maker Stewart Linford of High Wycombe