Just a bit of it
Auctioneers have a habit of lumping several related ‘bits’ together to make one lot. But who needs 11 fishing reels, bemoans Roger Field, who’s in no mood to sell the extras on
IN a stunning moment of self-awareness, I’ve realised that when the gods of the auction hunt are with me my mood is upbeat and I smile as I write. Conversely, when those same gods thwart me – and that is as often because there is nothing I want to buy that month as me then being outbid (again) – my mood darkens and I wonder why I bother to study auctions only to come away empty handed. I’m in such a mood right now and this month’s grievance is ‘bits’ – both the way that a much-needed ‘bit’ tends to cost significantly more as a single item than it does when sold as part of a whole and, second, auctioneers’ infuriating trick of lumping together ‘bits’ and selling them as expensive job lots when I only want one item and not the rest. It drives me demented. Just as it is doubtless meant to.
Exhibit 1 for the prosecution was 11 Orvis Battenkill large arbour reels, complete with backing and what looked to be ‘as new’ fly lines, in various useful sizes that JS Auctions sold on 25 June. I bought a 6wt Battenkill large arbour reel more than 20 years ago and it is a brilliant bit of kit. I’d dearly like a couple more, in different sizes. But not 11. Come the day, they fetched £500; £45.45 each. Peanuts. And infuriating. I’d have bid higher for a couple of individual reels. Instead, they were probably scooped by someone looking to make a quick profit. Why didn’t I buy them, sell off the others and make the
profit? I long ago learned the answer to that one. I’d never get around to selling them. Life is far too short and, it also follows, if that was my mentality I’d be a dealer and not a writer.
I mentioned those ‘lost’ reels to an auctioneer chum. He was taking no prisoners on the topic: “If I had to catalogue lowvalue things like that as separate lots I’d never get to go on holiday.” Which, whilst making complete sense, is nevertheless deeply irritating when you only want one (or two) of a job lot and don’t want to have to buy them all.
The same happened to me on 31 March at Roseberys. They had a ‘Fine Large (6in in diameter) Scraffiato Byzantine Bowl Fragment depicting a Bird of Prey’ 12th to 13th century, and three, similar (but not half so appealing) smaller ones. Roughly translated, these were decorative, brokenoff bottoms of bowls or dishes. “But you’ve been telling us not to buy broken stuff,” I hear you say. To which I counter that these paintings are about 1,000 years old, which I think is amazing. And, were the bowls complete, they would fetch high hundreds, maybe thousands. Each. And that biggest one would look great, especially if cleverly mounted. I wanted that one, but not the others. Which is doubtless why the auctioneer put them together in the first place, calculating that he’d get a good price for the big one but might struggle to sell the others as a separate lot.
Estimated at £200 to £400 – I was finger poised at £200 – they fetched an infuriating £340. More than I wanted to spend but, I still reckon, a bit of a bargain for a 1,000-year-old painting of a bird of prey. However, and hacked off as I still am at missing them, I console myself, there is but one certainty about auctions: who knows? I might have got them on the next bid, £360, or that buyer could have kept going. Only they knew.
The Philadelphia Museum of Art, in America, did keep going. They were so determined to buy a missing ‘bit’ at Thomas Del Mar’s Arms and Armour sale on 30 June that they ended up paying a world record price for a ‘renaissance’, South German, gilt and embossed, circa 1550-60, burgonet. This super fine, light cavalry helmet was once part of a garniture – a collection of multiple bits and pieces of armour that were put together for different purposes, from war fighting on horse or foot, to variants for different types of tourney and parades. All decorated identically, the ultimate 24-piece suit. Originally made for Don Garcia de Toledo, a Spanish marques as well as Viceroy of Sicily, the museum already owned the matching close helmet, left glove and the breast and backplates of the garniture
and they wanted this to add to their other bits. Interestingly (at least to me) whilst the etching was in excellent condition for its age, the helmet itself was not only well worn but missing its aesthetically important lower, front, neck plate, giving it a slightly unfinished appearance. The bidding was fascinating. The auctioneer had a commission bid in front of him, which took him up to around £92,000, because that was when he declared himself ‘out’. However, bidding faltered at about £60,000 and there was a longish delay as another bidder wondered whether to continue. The auctioneer must have been in agony, knowing that ‘his’ commission bidder would go another £30,000 if only that hesitating bidder would keep going. But unable to do anything about it. Why the delay? I know not. That’s also auctions for you. That bidder perhaps playing mind games? Anyway, eventually, the bidding headed north again until, finally… Bang! Gavel down: £96,000. Quite a price for a slightly incomplete helmet. But a timely reminder of how the finest bits still fetch the highest prices.
For horse lovers, a pair of huge (15½in high), highly decorative, late-17th/ early-18th-century South American ‘So-called “Conquistador” Stirrups’ also made an amazing price. Doubly amazing because, as the catalogue heading indicated, they were not ‘Conquistador’ at all – that period ended around the mid-16th century – and, when these stirrups were made, they were already a hark back to what the ruling Spanish saw as their heroic origins. Apart from pitying the poor horse, which must have wondered whether to buck or bolt as these horrors dug into its flank as it trotted along, they were, nevertheless, decidedly splendid and highly decorative. However, jaws did drop when they shattered their top £8,000 estimate to sell for £29,000.
Before leaving Del Mar’s temple of delights, a final, unusual ‘bit’ (humour me with my puns). I know about sword sticks, dagger canes, gun (both air and percussion) sticks and canes – these often come up for sale at auction – but this was a first for me: a Victorian ‘blow tube’ walking cane with a brass mouthpiece at the bottom and a turned wooden knob that fits into the top. An 1867 advertisement for a similar one explains its allure: a ‘weapon used by the Macoushie Indians (Brazil)… and can now offer a very powerful and accurate weapon for destroying vermin, shooting birds… one of the best indoor amusements for ladies and gentlemen. Tube, 10s 6d (that’s 55p for those born post-decimalisation); darts, 4s (20p) per dozen; balls 1s (5p) per 100.’
So, unlike those other weaponised ‘sticks’, designed to take on the random footpads and malcontents who haunted Georgian and Victorian England and who could make going for a walk decidedly dangerous, this was not a lethal weapon. It was, instead, marketed as a bit of sporting fun. Nail a pigeon in Trafalgar Square, perhaps, without the Peelers twigging ‘whodunnit’. Plink the local Mr D’arcy hard on the arse should you spot him stripping down for a bit of al fresco swimming in your lake. However, like so many ‘fads’, interest in blow stick canes – born of the Victorian love of exploration – came and went. This survivor hit near its middle £400 to £600 estimate at £480.
Down on the river recently I ‘mixed it up’ by bringing some deviant gun porn in the form of Bonhams’ 27 May Sporting Guns, Rifles and Vintage Firearms catalogue. What, I asked my fellow rods, did they make of the four- and eight-bore, single-barrel hammer guns on offer? Who would shoot these 13lb 11oz and
On regaining consciousness there were five teal beside him, retrieved by his dog whilst his lights were out