COLLECTORS’ CORNER

What’s making money at auction?

THERE HAVE been some more examples of individual BR enamel station totem signs being offered for sale at auctions up and down the country.

At their July 15 Toys, Models, Memorabilia & Railwayana sale, Wilson 55 sold a BR(W) Cardiff Queen Street chocolate and cream totem for a total of £342, including buyer’s premium. In the same sale, for those with more generous space to fill, a North Eastern Region tangerine and white enamel Berwick Upon Tweed running-in board (114in by 36in) made a total of £512.

There was a single BR totem in the latest Transport Auctions of London sale on July 31, an Eastern Region example. Lot 39 was an Upminster Bridge totem, described in the catalogue as “a heavily weathered example with colour loss and corroded flanges and reverse.”

Upminster Bridge station was opened in December 1934 by the LMS but used exclusively by London Underground District Line trains to Upminster as there were no platforms on the LMS lines. Upon nationalisation in 1948, the station passed to British Railways and then from BR to London Transport in 1969. Estimated at £90-110, the BR(E) totem sold for a hammer price of £320.

Also in this TAL sale were two Southern Railway enamel station target signs. Lot 27, a Horsted Keynes target sold at £450, while Lot 396 Crawley was estimated at £550-650, but sold for a hammer price of £900.

For those with an interest in SR targets, a Bexhill Central example has been consigned to the Crewe Heritage Railwayana Auction, October 29-November 1. Another BR(E) totem – Chatteris – appeared in the general sale of Burstow & Hewett, Battle, East Sussex on August 11, selling for a hammer price of £1,750. Chatteris was an intermediate station between St Ives and March in Cambridgeshire.

A Luton Midland Road totem appeared in a general sale on July 2 by W&H Peacock Auctioneers and Valuers of Bedford, but the auction house chose not to publish the price achieved.