Moore Allen - Service and Integrity that has stood the Test of Time - Established 1845

A RARE wartime guitar – played by a member of an award-winning dance band and used to accompany the Glenn Miller Orchestra – hit the right notes with bidders at an antiques auction in the Cotswolds on Friday.

American manufacturer Gibson ceased imports of the Super 400 and other models to the UK at the outbreak of the second world war in 1939, making UK models rare then and now.

However, professional musician Maurice Goodearl – who played with Eric Wakefield and his Blue Rhythm Band and once accompanied members of the Glenn Miller Orchestra at Wycombe Abbey – managed to find one at Francis Day & Hunter in Charing Cross Road in 1941, for which he paid £90.

And when it went under the hammer at Moore Allen & Innocent's Selected Antiques Sale in Cirencester, it was plucked for £5,000 – at the top of the £3,000 to £5,000 estimate and the joint top price of the day.

Sharing the accolade was a George II walnut corner chair, which also reached the top end of its £3,000 to £5,000 estimate, while another George II walnut chair – this one a side chair with lions paw and ball feet and retaining some of its original 18th century upholstery – achieved the fourth highest lot price of the day at £3,600.

In terms of the hammer price achieved they were separated only by a late 19th century Chinese silk screen depicting a monkey in a tree and birds in flight, which was sold to a Chinese bidder for £4,000 – proving that the appetite for Oriental antiques among the Chinese has not abated.

With Christmas approaching it was no surprise that antique toys attracted good bids. But what caught everyone on the hop with the price paid for dolls house furniture, with one set – including cooking pots and a salon chair – making £2,300 while a second lot – including a walnut bureau, display cabinet, chaise longue, piano, and chairs – was purchased by the same bidder for £1,700; just a shade above a Victorian doll's house as a three storey townhouse which sold for £1,800.

Meanwhile a 19th Century porcelain headed doll wearing a contemporary christening gown was sold for £1,250 and a Victorian wax doll under a glass dome, bearing label "Wax Fairy Doll from Queen Victoria's last Christmas tree at Osborne 1900.....” made £440 against a £200 to £300 estimate.

Rocking horses, too, made were worth a punt, with a Victorian horse in the manner of Stevenson on an associated red painted sleigh base leading the field at £1,300.

Like Chinese art, gold continued to hold its value through 2011, and a cased 1980 gold proof coin set including £5, £2, sovereign and half sovereign in original presentation case achieved £1,800 – way above face value.

In all £104,000 worth of antiques were bought and sold during Moore Allen's final sale of 2011. “It was a great sale, with lots of enthusiastic buyers, and another great result in particular for our toy department,” said auctioneer Philip Allwood.

For more information about buying and selling at auction log on to www.mooreallen.co.uk