The price of boredom
With his war memoir finished and no new project to keep him busy, Roger Field finds himself at rather a loose end – and the devil finds work for idle hands, much to his mentor’s dismay
EVEN A Sorcerer’s constantly learning Auction Apprentice occasionally feels the urge to break free and try to land a cunning buy without the prior blessing of his usually consulted, and always heeded, Master. Much, I suppose, as a child longs to outgrow its parent. And so it was that I sent ‘expert Nick’ an email linking him to a few of my recent, secret, auction bids with the heading: “Am I going mad?” Obviously, I was hoping for the answer: “No. Clever you.”
Fat chance. After listing what I had failed to spot, he concluded by asking whether boredom was interfering with my critical faculties. He must have been a psychiatrist in an earlier life as, sadly, he’s bang on the money. I need a new project. My war memoir, Scimitar into Stanley, was published back in April and there is now little for me to do. I recently sold a couple of other books to publishers in my own role as a literary agent but, deals signed, that is job done for the moment. My own literary agent tells me he is hitting a wall of what he calls ‘Emilys’ with my Crusade novel. While Emily is a lovely name, these particular, deeply serious, Oxford-educated, London-centric Emilys not only run most commercial book publishing in these ‘right on’ days, but are not overly impressed (horrified, more like) by my tales of medieval male adventuring and bloodletting. So, no new book to immerse myself in. While fishing has been hugely entertaining, despite this season’s trout taking to wearing sombreros and drinking tequila deep under the rioting ranunculus, a chap needs an all-engrossing project to propel him into his study. If I’m already searching the internet for auction offerings each morning, I dread to think how much time I’ll be spending going cross-eyed come deep mid-winter. Because once I spot something interesting, I am prone to deciding I want it. No – ‘need’ it.
Take, for example, Roseberys’ 18 August Traditional and Modern Home sale; a catalogue I would not normally look at as ‘home’ antiques are not my thing. But, bored, I did and, hey presto, it was selling off ‘98 items from the old Country Life offices’, and some bits that appear to have crept over from The Field offices too. Zappy, modern companies tend to do this – out with the old and in with the new. Lot two was the Country Life editor’s desk, ‘a George Iii-style mahogany desk, early 20th century, with leather inset top over a knee-hole frieze arranged with five drawers’. In fact, near identical proportions – 5ft 6in wide by 3ft 2in deep – to the desk I am writing this at right now and a must-have for anyone with literary aspirations, or someone with none and a sense of humour. It bounced over its top £1,000 estimate to sell for
£1,400; not much for what it is and what it must have witnessed.
What about lot 90 – ‘The Field, Centenary Issue Number 1853-1953, November 22nd 1952: together with two other copies of The Field magazine’ (and others)? I emailed our own distinguished Editor. “It would look great on your wall,” I told her. “I’ve got a printed version framed on my wall already,” she replied. ‘Respect’, as Ali G would once have said. They sold for their bottom estimate of £40.
With nothing else better to do, I continued searching. And there it was (not from the Country Life offices): a ‘continental pottery charger, late 19th century, of Hispano-moresque form, 16¼in, estimate £100 to £150’. In other words, a whopping great, highly decorative, old (but not very old) Spanish plate. What’s more – and I have written before about my recent interest in ancient Seville tiles/ pottery since I holidayed there – I think it’s Seville, with its traditional colours of blue, brown and yellow. Come the day, bidding kicked off at £80. I clicked ‘Bid Now’ on the computer. And just like that, it was mine. “I’m telling on you [to my wife],” wrote expert Nick when I sent him the link; he was horrified that I’d bought something 19th-century when my previous Seville buys have been hundreds of years old. Fretting that I had indeed made a mistake, I hid it until this weekend when I returned from the Moreton-in-marsh Agricultural Show, where my own significant other had been punching above her weight with her credit card. Seizing the spendthrift moment, I propped it up in the dining room and she loves it. Phew. Although, and here is one problem with some of these old Seville/islamic ceramics that I so like, the colours are so ‘bold’ and the design so ‘strong’ that they tend to overawe everything in the vicinity. I’m told it will have to move, but it’s hanging on in there at the moment.
My next bid failed; fortunately, probably. After writing in my September column about kindjals (large, wicked, Caucasian knives), I realised that I ‘needed’ one. And there, on 30 August, as I was bimbling through a Sworders online catalogue, was a fine-looking ‘Caucasian kindjal, late 19th
Nick’s point is this: buy a kindjal if that’s what floats my boat. But focus my money on buying a really top one
century, with 13.25in [that’s massive] tapering double-edged blade, silvermounted scabbard decorated in niello work and scrolls’. I bid up to bottom estimate £300, but it sold for £400. Good value surely? “Yes,” agreed my worriedfor-my-sanity expert, £400 was the right price but, had it been a really good one (it’s about the quality of the steel used and the designs on the silver, apparently) it should have been more like £800 to £900. Which again shows that, even though I know a lot, it is terrifying how much I still have to learn. Nick’s point is this: buy a kindjal if that’s what floats my currently maniacal boat. But focus my money on buying a really top one. Not a lesser one. Which was the same point he was making with the handsome, but much later, Seville plate. Although at £80, and with a stillsmiling wife, I’m counting that as a win.
Nick did, however, encourage me to an act of near suicide (on eventual discovery) at Olympia Auctions on 29 June, where I ended up with that fine Elizabethan morion, or helmet [Under the Hammer, September]: ‘a fine and rare Irish basket-hilted backsword, second quarter of the 18th century’. Although far later than my collecting period, there is something deeply romantic and compelling about these Gaelic, basket-hilted swords, a sense obviously shared by others given their high prices, despite there being plenty around. Our forebears were assiduous collectors too. This, though, was Irish and, as such, super rare. It had a seriously imposing hilt and, as my mother was from the west coast of Ireland, that made it even more desirable. It was estimated at £4,000 to £6,000, though. “Worth it,” said Mephistopheles, especially at low estimate. Apparently, pre-2008 and the collapse of the Irish ‘Tiger economy’, that estimate might have been £8,000 to £10,000, and it only used to take two Irishmen brawling with their credit cards for prices to go much higher.
I visited. I inspected. I swung. Only one problem: the blade looked slightly skimpy (as it still does to me in the photo) compared with the hilt. “Wrong,” said my adviser. “The blade is spot-on right. Nothing skimpy about it; a fine killing blade.” Nor did he accept that the magnificent hilt dwarfed it somewhat. Unconvinced, I stopped at £3,500, but the reserve must have been the bottom estimate as it did not sell. Blood pounding, I went in hard on a second sword that I had admired at the viewing, its longer blade in perfect proportion to its less-impressive hilt: ‘a north European rapier, second quarter of the 17th century, probably English, stamped “Me Fecit Hounslow”’ (‘Made in Hounslow’ for non-classicists among you). Nor does Hounslow feel overly romantic – unless you are a Heathrow Airport plane spotter, that is; although, back then, it was a leafy village and, for a short time, a centre of British sword-making. This time I dug deep, right up to the top estimate £2,400, but to no avail. It sold for £2,800.
On 21 November, Holts has a truly exceptional offer. ‘Jos Egg, London; a rare and important cased (with accoutrements) set of a 20-bore officer’s over-under flintlock pistol with a companion “Baby Egg” pocket-pistol… with partial hallmarks for 1815... the first with octagonal, rebrowned, 7in barrels, the top signed in gilt “J Egg, London”... the back of grip with an engraved socket for a detachable stock (included in the case); the second a miniature of the first, but with re-blued 27/8in. barrels’: essential fighting kit for the welltravelled officer of his day. Probably not exactly a ‘snip’ at £40,000 to £60,000, but a wonderful thing to own.