Antiques

HIGH TIME

Richard Bromell ASFAV, Charterhouse Auctioneers

Ido enjoy my work. I mean really enjoy it, well for 95% of the time. There are the highs and the lows of the business which translates into exciting lots and not-so-exciting lots.

As penned here before, the exciting lots include the Italian chipped plate we sold for £560,000. I found, or rather discovered, this fine piece of Italian Renaissance pottery hung on the wall of a Somerset cottage where the owner attached no value to it over the decades she had owned it having inherited the piece from her father.

But the highs are often offset by the lows. A particular low I remember was on a routine valuation day at our Long Street salerooms. Each working day we have regular specialist valuation days which include silver, jewellery, pictures, Asian art, books, coins, stamps, medals, automobilia, sporting and collector’s items to name but a few.

At these valuation days, people turn up with cars full up with the good, the bad and the ugly. On the valuation day in question, the owner wanted to show me a collection which had taken many years to amass. A keen traveller, they had spent many, many hours flying around the world. Somehow, one day, an aeroplane sick bag caught their eye and the collecting bug took hold. Over the following years, the collection of aeroplane sick bags grew and grew, but on this valuation day I sadly deemed them not to have any value for our auctions, much to the client’s disappointment.

However, thankfully the highs outnumber the lows and I am on particularly high high at the moment.

Following on from our hugely successful specialist classic car and classic motorcycle auctions, which totalled over £900,000 for both auctions, I was invited to look at an old Bentley on a farm. Bentleys always get my attention and this one had been bought by the grandfather in 1954, apparently for use as a farm vehicle. By 1968 it was little used and rolled into the corner of a barn.

Moving forward to 2022 and the family are concerned about the structure of the barn and realise they will never put the Bentley back on the road again. When I first pulled back the barn doors it was difficult for me to contain my excitement as I unearthed the car in its full, dusty glory – a 1935 Bentley drophead coupe with a Thrupp & Maberly body.

Now entered into our 12th October classic and vintage car auction this beautifully dusty Bentley is estimated to sell for £50,000-70,000. Hopefully the new owner will not stick it in their barn for the next 54 years.