Sword auction nets $380,000
A Canadian man’s stunning collection of historical swords drew more than $380,000 in winning bids at a U.K. auction Tuesday, with one special sabre — only recently revealed to have been owned by an early-19th century British prime minister — fetching twice the expected price at nearly $12,000.
Another sword and scabbard presented to a notable British military officer in 1831 also exceeded expectations, topping $25,000.
The collection was amassed over 40 years by B. C. antiquarian Gary Bates, a leading figure in the province’s Historical Arms Collectors Society. Bates, 77, told Postmedia News prior to the sale that he decided to sell the 400 vintage British swords he’d acquired since the early 1970s to spare his Vancouver- area family from having to deal some day with the huge cache of weapons.
Tuesday’s auction saw Bonhams offer only about half of the collection. A second sale of Bates’s remaining swords is scheduled to take place on Dec. 5.
The two-part auction was expected to bring in total sales of close to $500,000, but Tuesday’s strong results suggest the overall pre-sale estimate was conservative.
The sale “was a virtual sellout,” Bonhams spokesperson Julian Roup said, noting that 202 of the 227 lots were sold.
Among the prized pieces was a sword that Bonhams curators recently identified as having been made more than two centuries ago for Lord Grenville, the British prime minister best remembered for spearheading passage of the 1807 law that ended the slave trade in the British Empire.
The discovery, which pushed the estimated value of the sword past $5,000, had come as a surprise to Bates.
“I didn’t know it belonged to a prime minister until Bonhams told me,” he told Postmedia News earlier this month.
A gold-plated, ivory-handled presentation sabre given to British military officer William Bird Brodie in 1831 — a gift from his troops as a “token of their attachment, respect, and esteem” — was the auction’s top-priced item at $25,500.
“It was a hell of a decision to make a 40-year hobby disappear overnight,” the Manitoba-born Bates said ahead of Tuesday’s sale.