Record breakers and famous names at sporting sale
ANTIQUES auctioneers in Cirencester did a roaring trade last week, with lions, leopards and rhinos making some of the top prices of the day during a Sporting Sale that tipped the scales at over £81,000.
A rare one-and-three-quarter-foot-long rhinoceros horn, which had been in the same Cotswold family since it was shot three generations ago, charged through its £10,000 to £15,000 estimate, selling for £16,000 at Moore Allen & Innocent on Friday.
Only a handful of rhino horns come onto the market each year. Rhinos are a protected species, and auctioneers can only sell horns if the rhino was killed before 1947 and the horns have been ‘crafted’ – mounted or carved into an ornament.
Two of the rhino’s feet, which had been fashioned into jars with silver lids, were also sold, and made £460 and £300 respectively.
Bidders were quick to spot a good deal when a record-breaking leopard skin went under the hammer. Measuring a whopping 8ft 9ins from whiskers to tail, the skin – which holds a place in the Rowland Ward ‘s Record Book of Big Game – achieved £2,200 against a £600 to £800 estimate.
And collectors pounced on a lion skin consigned by the same vendor. Measuring 9ft 8ins, the rug had never been on display, guaranteeing its excellent condition. It sold for double its £600 to £800 estimate at £1,400.
Outside of the taxidermy section, a very rare edition of Snaffles’ famous The Best View in Europe, which features a white horse watching a huntsman and his mount jump a fence, was sold for £3,000.
The picture appeared in at least three variations, and the example at Moore Allen was the one everyone wants – the version featuring a pair of hands holding the reigns of the horse… reputedly those of Snaffles himself.
It was one of 19 Snaffles prints and lithographs to go under the hammer. Other notable pieces included two copies of The Informers, featuring donkeys watching a fox in a landscape scene. One made £700 and the second – by virtue of the pencil signature – achieved £850.
Meanwhile there was a warm reception for The Thaw, a signed watercolour by Peter Biegel featuring huntsmen on horseback and hounds on a country lane in the snow, which sold for £1,800 against a £400 to £600 estimate.
Also in a frame and with an equestrian theme were racing silks worn by the most successful jockey of the Victorian era, Cheltenham-born Fred Archer, when he won the 1,000 Guineas in 1879 on Wheel of Fortune.
The silks romped past their £150 to £200 estimate, passing the post at £1,600. The heritage obviously attracted the bidders – including three on the phones lines competing with collectors in the room – as a second framed set of silks of similar vintage, which were not associated with a jockey of any repute, made £40.
And despite being the first sale since England’s poor showing in the World Cup, there was even some enthusiasm for football memorabilia.
A large quantity of Football League commemorative postal covers in five bound folio albums, many signed with individual signatures, others with team autographs, including Tottenham Hotspur, Leicester City, Reading, Arsenal, Anglo-Italian League, European Cup Winners Cup, and England versus Brazil made £540.
The next sale at Moore Allen & Innocent is the antique and general sale on September 10, while September 24 sees the return of the crème de la crème at the selected antique sale.
For more information about buying and selling at auction log on to www.mooreallen.co.uk
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| A record-breaking leopard skin, which sold for £2,200 | The skin of a lion, shot by the same hunter, which achieved £1,400 |
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| A rare rhino horn, which sold for £16,000 |
Silks worn by Fred Archer, the most successful jockey of the Victorian era, which made £1,600 |