Lustres Sparke

Report from our auction on 31st March 2010

A pair of Victorian tables lustres took top price at John Goodwins latest collective auction sale at the Pavilion Rooms, Ledbury.

The hand painted decoration was of particularly good quality and the lustres, notoriously fragile, were in remarkably good condition.

There were a total of 4 commission bids and a number of bidders in the sale room but they were eventually sold to the London trade on the telephone at a hammer price of £1200.

A collection of enamel advertising signs consigned from a local vendor achieved some exceptional results including £440 for a Bedford trucks sign and £280 a for Cherry Blossom shoe polish sign despite having been significantly cut down.

Another private collection entered into the sale, this time a collection of oil lamps also performed exceptionally well.  The best of the lamps, a brass Corinthian column lamp with coloured glass bowl and pink etched glass shade achieved a hammer price of £330 closely followed by another similar lamp with a yellow shade at £300.

Once again jewellery performed extremely well, contested by a private buyer and the trade.  Best price in the jewellery section went to a box of miscellaneous items which achieved a very unexpected hammer price of £1000 significantly above the pre-sale estimate.

In the furniture section antique pine performed well with a linen press achieving £320 against a £200-250 estimate and a storage cupboard estimated at £100 selling at £170.

Whilst the ‘brown’ furniture trade has not been enjoying the best of times there still appears to be a very good demand from private buyers for items that are in good retail condition and this was well illustrated by the sale of a Victorian dining table and 6 chairs at a combined hammer price of £600.

Demand for collectables has increased dramatically in recent years and stamps, postcards, coins and medals have all been attracting considerable levels of interest and demand.

A private collection of coins achieved £510 a quantity of Victorian and other postcards and greetings cards sold at £110 and a single album with contents including postcards by Lucie Mabel Atwell, Lawson Wood and Donald McGill sold at £240.

A medal for long service and good conduct sold at £160.  This was an exceptional price however the medal was quite unusual having been awarded to a botswain in Her Majesties Coastguard.  Another group of medals including WWI and Victory medals and a British Empire medal was hotly contested by a number of medal collectors and sold at £250.

John Goodwins next sale is scheduled to take place on the 19th May and already entries including a collection of Dinky toy cars and a number of items of good quality jewellery entries have been received.