‘No frills’ Bloxham-style sale headed by pre-Grouping board and diesel panel

GREAT Central's ‘Bloxham'-style auction on September 11 produced two four-figure realisations, comprising £1200 for a steam-era work-in-progress information board and £1000 for a flamecut cabside panel from a 1983-built diesel.

The board, of London & North Western Railway origin, was from Crewe Works and provided updates by way of data slot-in panels, while the flamecut was from Class 56 heavy freight Co-Co No. 56116, which was built at Crewe in March 1983 and withdrawn in February 2003 from Toton in Nottinghamshire, one of the country's largest rail depots that in the days of BR steam was coded 18A and later 16A.

At £920 came a London & South Western Railway 11ft 9in-tall lattice post distant signal and at £800 a ‘Thornaby & intermediate stations' departure wooden board, followed by a painting by Mike Jeffries of LMS Princess Coronation Pacific No. 46235 City of Birmingham at Birmingham New Street station that went for £780.

Three incomplete Tyer's No. 6 single-line tablet instruments from the Lymington area in Hampshire sold as a single lot for £700, BR(S) station totem sign BR(S) Hackbridge for £680, and a collection of more than 4000 negatives, slides and photographs, including overseas diesels, went to a new home for £580. Prices exclude buyer's premium of 15% (+ VAT).

The auction – dubbed ‘Bloxham' by collectors as that was the location of this style of sale when held pre-Covid with a live saleroom audience but is currently purely live online – is a quickfire no-frills event with no reserves nor telephone or commission bids. It is a style that has become popular with those seeking general railwayana, and perhaps even a bargain or two, and is a model that other auction houses have followed.