Rage against the machine
Do those ‘Buy’ buttons really conspire against you, wonders Roger Field. Or is it just that too many of us have the same impeccably good taste?
MY mate E tells me he is wondering if he is being diddled when he bids on the internet. I was sceptical. But E is not given to hyperbole or paranoia so I asked him to expand. He has been bidding on both the-saleroom. com and Invaluable.com (I’m keeping his name secret as much from his wife as you) and every time he taps ‘Buy’, that item then goes on to sell, him in hot pursuit, for multiples over high estimate. Conversely, similar things he does not bid for in the same sale sell within estimate, or don’t sell. Given how downright devious technology is becoming he’s worried ‘it’ – whatever ‘it’ is - has noted what a determined bidder he can be and is bidding him up.
I have a love-hate relationship with these bidding sites and would love to cry “Foul!” I love that they automatically ‘ping’ me things I want from all over the world. Pre-internet, collectors paid local ‘runners’ to do this and bid for them, if they wanted to stay in the shadows lest competitors see what they were after and bid them up. No more expensive catalogues, they are free online. No need to travel to the auction houses, either. Bidding from home saves time and travel costs. However, I hate paying that extra (approximately) 5% + VAT on top of the already massive (approximately) 25% + VAT buyer’s premium. I hate that, with the world, literally, scrutinising those online catalogues, even those of my local auction house, bargain-snaffling opportunities have plummeted, killing some of the fun of the auction hunt.
Then again, internet bidding has pretty much killed the ‘Ring’. Dealers/collectors got together pre-sale and agreed what they wanted. The Ring bought these items at maximum agreed prices. Result, unless others piled in, they got those things ‘cheap’ as they were not competing with each other and auctioned them off between themselves afterwards, the ‘profit’ divided between them, defrauding both seller, and auctioneer, who ended up with lower prices on which to charge his premiums. Long ago I was bidding for helmets in a major London auction house. I only twigged the Ring was playing me when, having bid high in frustration on the least good helmet, the nasty bastards actually laughed before, my money now spent, they snaffled the rest at low
estimate. Those unlovely ‘Lovejoys’ showed their true colours that day. Thing is, this lot trust each other so little that they no longer know whether the internet bidder they are competing against in the room is not a fellow Ringer who, knowing their agreed top prices, is merrily shafting them from his Smart Phone.
So, E, I doubt it. Not with free telephone bids. Free ‘Commission’ bids – you leave a written bid. I only leave ‘commission’ with those I trust – others, I worry (paranoia, but…) might use my written offer to inflate the bidding. Room bids. Bidding site the-saleroom. com competes fiercely with Invaluable.com. Both compete with in-house bidding sites: Thomas Del Mar and Sworders both have free-to-use sites. That’s a lot of different ways to bid. So, my answer is more prosaic. E has excellent taste. If he wants something then, chances are, so do others. Ever thought of becoming a dealer…?
Holts has so embraced this ‘New World’ of the internet that it has stopped holding sales in London, which it saw as money poorly spent when the number of room bidders was plummeting. Eighty percent of its last auction total was through commission bids, telephone or the internet. At its 10 December sale the firm had a beautifully boxed set of four – yes, four! - EJ Churchill 12-bore ‘Premiere’ sidelock ejectors, estimated at £10,000 to £15,000. Made for the
Maharajah of Patiala (north-west India), I assumed that, when I asked the obvious question: “Why four?” I was going to be told that he liked to cock a snook at his fellow Maharahs who only had pairs, or ‘threes’, or that he shot so quickly he needed two or
three loaders. Not a bit of it. Turns out he was a very generous Maharajah, the sort I would like to befriend, and had two boxes of four made so that he could offer all his guests a fine English gun to use. The other box, Holts thinks, is still out there. These are numbered ‘1 to 4’, so get looking for ‘5 to 8’. They sold for £16,000. Why so little? Well, 25in barrels for starters; one barrel below minimum recommended thickness. But what magnificent things to own. Even if you don’t lend them to your chums you will never be short of spare parts.
If these are near sublime, at its 22/23 June sale Holts has the completely ridiculous: a 2.7mm Kolibri (German for hummingbird) centrefire pistol, the smallest commercially available pistol in the world. Made in 1914 and marketed as a ‘Ladies’ self-defence weapon’, the tiny round has less percussive force than a punch. One wag wrote that the greatest danger this weapon posed was that you swallow it and choke. Another that it “might dispatch a trapped mouse or a very aggressive cockroach”. Commercial success? “Nein.” Thus very rare today? “Ja.” Hence its meaty £1,500 to £2,000 estimate.
It is April, the sun may even be about to shine and – don’t ask me how I know, but I do, and I ‘feel your pain’ – all round the country readers will be facing imminent ruination as their daughters get married. So, swallow deep; go buy your own ‘little princess’ a tiara. Fellows had a simple but elegant, gold-and-diamond cracker in its 30 January sale. It fetched a dead on mid-estimate £12,500. Buy her one and, trust me on this, you may even be allowed you to invite a few of your wrinkly friends to join them for ‘their’ (or should that be ‘your’?) after party. Conversely, throw her a googly. How about a Norwegian, silver gilt, brudekrone (bride crown)? Not a fraction as elegant and definitely the “Where on God’s earth did you find that, Dad?” option, but still a tiara when it comes to bragging rights. The answer, before you are banned from the post-wedding champagne knees up, was Canterbury Auction Galleries on 26 November. Top estimated at £1,500, it sold for £4,700. Maybe a couple of fathers convinced their little darlings they had Viking ancestors…
On 27 November Bonhams Arms and Armour had me wondering what would possess someone – it was billed ‘A lifetime’s collection’ – to collect scores and scores of cavalry officers’ silver flap pouches, some with belts, some without – ditto loads of sabretaches (ornate leather ‘pockets’ that hung from the belt, because Hussar types had no room for pockets in their tight, Rudolf Nureyev-esque, uniforms) and helmets; which I do ‘get’. But what to do with this glitzy kit? Hang them on the wall? They’d look a bit weird, I think. And I cannot imagine many long-haired camp commandants granting permission. Back in my Army days the orderly officer (guard officer – often a punishment duty) had to wear ‘Blues’ in the mess that night. He inspected the guard looking immaculate (and vaguely sober, allegedly) and he wore one of these ornate crossbelts – they originated as message pouches, I believe. One chum, chasing one from his old regiment, was lured in by the, roughly, £300 to £400 estimates and was rudely disappointed. Collectors, I assume, bid around estimate for those from long ago deceased Yeomanry regiments – who else would want them? – whilst, I’m also guessing, officers from very much alive regiments fought for ‘their’ ones. So,
while a fine Derbyshire Yeomanry Cavalry (active and very much ‘at war’ 1794-1957) belt and pouch fetched an under £300 bottom estimate £250, a similar one from the still hale and hearty Royal Gloucestershire Hussars (the World War II hero of my book, Rogue Male, was RGH) roared past its top £500 estimate to fetch £1,200. Ditto everyone’s favourite Scottish regiment (never, ever, drink whisky with them), The Scots Greys. A £450 top estimate turned into £1,000. I’d have liked one but suspect I’d then stick it in a sock drawer and forget about it. Not the Royal Horse Guards officer’s helmet, however. I have always wanted one of these and there’s a space on a shelf looking at me right now, saying, “Here, master. Please.” Not in A1 condition, hence its low £1,000 top estimate, it nevertheless fetched £2,800.
C&T Auctioneers had a couple of steals for horse lovers on 22 January. A handsome, Edwardian, inlaid mahogany, six-whip rack, which would make a fine addition in any tack room. Estimated at £60 to £100, it fetched a well-deserved £220. However, a horse measuring cane – hallmarked silver mounts, London 1903, with a pull-out boxwood measure graduated in hands and metres and a hinged brass tangent (spirit level missing) – struggled despite being a useful bit of kit. It fetched an under £100 bottom estimate, £80.
Finally, I’ve been watching Sons of Anarchy on Netflix. Sorry, I know, but the series reminds me of school; less the Harleys, hookers, drugs and automatic weapons – we did shoot .303 Lee Enfields, though. So, how about the Pope Francis ‘signed’ – Gospel truth! – Harley-davidson 1,570cc Custom Cycle ‘White Unique’ with ‘numerous gold-plated components’? The mind doth boggle at this miscegenation. Luckily, I don’t have room here, and this is a family magazine, to tell you my Mr Harley meeting God in Heaven joke. Suffice to say, this ‘mother’, sold by Bonhams last October, arrived below its £50,000 lower reserve at £42,000. Stairway to Heaven, anyone?