Buy, buy baby
How better to spend the lonely hours of lockdown – and enhance a collection you never knew you’d started – than at an online auction. Roger Field presses ‘Buy’
STRANGE times in the auction world and not necessarily in ways you might at first think. In came the lockdown and, I rather assumed – as I’ll bet did most auctioneers – that it was adios to the heady days of bidders splurging eye-watering sums on things they might well want but most certainly do not need. But not a bit of it. Many post-lockdown auctions have, it appears, been going gangbusters. You may wonder why. I have my own pet theory. All over these closeddoor islands, folk are unexpectedly getting to know their loved ones far better than they ever expected; far more suddenly than they ever expected. Given a choice between endless ‘quality time’ with their significant others and getting to know their beloved collections, I’ll wager many are opting for the latter. With the full encouragement of the former. I’ll even wager that some who have not collected stamps, coins, butterflies and such like since puberty struck are now rediscovering the myriad delights of those long-forgotten hobbies. After all, there’ll never be a better opportunity to focus on your gun, sword, erotica, car, silver, instruments of torture, whatever collection, not least for the structure it gives to an otherwise (rather) empty day. And, to stay interesting, collections need new bits. Constantly.
All this is only made possible by the internet. A few years ago I question whether any but the larger and more sophisticated auction houses could have kept going as so many are now doing. First, the auctioneers needed to invest in the technology and the manpower – someone needs to upload those digital catalogues and photographs onto the auction sites – then the buyers (you!) needed to endorse it; be willing to ‘view’, select and buy online, rather than
in person. It was only last autumn that Holts announced that, given the growing paucity of buyers in the room come sale day, its December sale would be held at its Norfolk HQ instead of Central London. The firm was delighted by the results. It put this down to the level of detail in its ‘Condition Reports’, coupled with the quality of the accompanying photographs.
I confess to being rather ‘bah humbug!’ about this. Not a problem with a bottle of wine or a coin, which is usually what it is, but I want to lift and inspect a gun or bit of armour. Unless it is so cheap that I can afford to make a mistake. Couple this with videoed auctioneering – which does give some flavour of what is going on as the bids come in – and the ‘new normal’ virtual auction is alive and bidding.
Gavin Gardiner, of the eponymous auction house, had already printed the firm’s Fine Modern & Vintage Sporting Guns catalogue when the lockdown bit, leaving him with no chance to revise estimates. He went ahead with a virtual sale. The results were “Certainly no worse” than if it had been live at Sotheby’s. In fact, he reckons his cheaper shotguns, bolt-action rifles and accessories (in particular) sold even better than usual. He heartily agreed with me about all those bored chaps squirrelled away at home, filling an otherwise dull day by tapping the ‘Buy’ button while their ‘lockdown buddies’ explored a newly found love for baking in the kitchen.
That said, his problem area remains, as it has for a time now: higher value guns, while there are some important question marks. Will there be a proper season this year and, if not, why am I buying an expensive new gun? To which, as there is no current answer, the autumn sales could throw up some even bigger bargains than are available already. Will steel shot become compulsory and make these excellent, but older, guns semiredundant? And, with the lockdown in force, how will I get my mitts on my purchase? Answer: Gardiner sends it to a local, registered firearms dealer and you pick it up from him or her. Antique guns he puts in the post.
A lovely, near unused, built in 1991, 12-bore Purdey, single trigger, over-andunder, sidelock ejector, “fell between two stools” and remained unsold at a lower estimate £50,000. Whilst he could “sell it every day for £30,000”, 30in would have been preferable to its 28in – what he would do for some ‘barrel lengthening lotion’ in these length-obsessed days, but, he tells me, the bigger problem is that, whilst this beauty offered a massive discount from this model’s
current ‘in excess of’ £165,000 (including VAT) price new, those who can afford £50,000 will tend to prefer to pay the extra and buy new. And fitted. There’s a lot of very wealthy folk about… He reckons this Purdey is great value for what it is. It is still available.
A ‘trio’ of Charles Hellis 12-bore, sidelock ejectors estimated at £4,000 to £6,000 sold on bottom estimate. He reckons they were something of a steal as buyers invariably lack imagination when it comes to trios. Few go to an auction looking for a set, so most don’t even consider them. However, they offer, at the very least, a ‘pair’, as the worst of them could be cannibalised for spare parts: invaluable given the cost of repairs. He goes further. As a pair he would have estimated them at £3,000 to £5,000 and expected £3,500, maybe even £4,000. That means the third ‘working’ gun sold for either £500 or, even, nothing. It is much the same with pairs, although usually less extreme. Most buyers want single guns so, on average, if a pair sells for £2,000, each gun would probably fetch £1,100 if sold separately. Not that long ago he sold a pair for £2,000 (he didn’t specify which lot or when, for obvious reasons). The buyer wanted No 1, which was in excellent condition; No 2 was less good. He re-entered No 2 a few sales later. It rather unexpectedly fetched £1,600. Result: the canny, and slightly lucky, buyer/seller ended up with No 1 for £400. There are bargains to be had with pairs and trios.
It was not dissimilar at Holts’ twoday sale on 23 and 24 March. Day One, unlockeddown, although sparsely attended and mainly online and telephone; Day Two, full lockdown and virtual. Flexibility required. They sold 77% of lots (even more post-sale) as buyers spent two soothing days bidding on guns, swords and boys’ toys whilst happily ‘self-isolating’ from their families. Until we know there will be a shooting season, how about practising at targets à la ancienne (as our forebears did it) with a Bogardus glass ball trap – glass balls flung about 60ft into the air, which were the precursor to the clay pigeons that followed. AH Bogardus, a deeply modest American in the Trumpian mould, who styled himself ‘Champion Living Shot in the World’ – he once hit 4,844 glass balls out of 5,000 fired at in 500 minutes, so no slouch with a shooter – invented his trap in 1877 and then proceeded to patent his Bogardus glass balls for the chucking of from said trap. Once manufactured, and smashed, in their millions, these coloured balls look like Christmas decorations and are now treasured by collectors. The trap smacked its £400 ‘high’ estimate and an amethystcoloured glass ball its ‘low’ £80 estimate; a veritable left-and-right.
Or, the Victorian answer to keeping gamebirds lying low even when near to the guns – or, I dare say, keeping pigeon off our vigorously sprouting veg patch – an 1886 ‘Dart’s Original Sporting Hawk Kite’, which does exactly what it says on its box: a mock-up of a hawk with a wooden frame and silk wings that terrified birds. It soared to its low estimate £300.
Gavin Gardiner also had the solution to the cast of Watership Down, currently busy chomping through our veg patch before bolting down their holes to propagate a new generation of cute little cast members: ‘The Gamekeeper’ (great name!), a .22,