Charge! Waterloo memorabilia fans let fly into battle
IN THIS year’s Budget George Osborne announced an extra £1 million to celebrate the bicentenary this summer of the Duke of Wellington’s victory over the French at the Battle of Waterloo. Collectors of memorabilia are poised to cash in too, as experts predict an uplift in value for all items that can be traced to the famous battle. A series of themed auctions are planned up and down the country.
Iain Gale, military historian and author of an acclaimed novel about the battle, Four Days In June, says: ‘If you have Waterloo items tucked away – many have been in the same families for generations – and you want to sell, now is the time to do it.’
Gale is putting together an auction for Edinburgh-based auctioneers Lyon & Turnbull – to be held on June 24, six days after the bicentenary on June 18. He says: ‘I’ve had lots of interest and have been travelling the country inspecting pieces for the sale.’
Gale is particularly excited by a painting, thought to be the work of Scottish artist James Howe, which depicts Waterloo on the eve of the battle. He is also enthralled by a piece of luggage that appears to have belonged to Napoleon and been used to transport silverware on the French Emperor’s Egyptian campaign. He is also auctioning a few strands of the Duke of Wellington’s hair in an envelope, which he believes could fetch £1,000.
‘It’s so hard to put a value on these items,’ he says. ‘There’s such a frisson when you touch something that has been on the battlefield. You are really selling the associative power of objects.’
Lyon & Turnbull is not the only auction house to be staging a Waterloo-themed auction. There will be one at Bonhams, in London, on Wednesday that has more than 160 lots related to the battle. Jon Baddeley, Bonhams’ managing director, says the limited amount of memorabilia associated with it keeps values high. ‘The bicentenary is a good trigger. If you have something related to the battle you want to sell, you should consider doing it now.’ he says.
Many of the auction’s lots are expected to make exceptionally high prices, including a limewood model of the figurehead for flagship HMS Queen Charlotte, which has a guide price of between £60,000 and £100,000.
For enthusiasts who have less to spend, Baddeley says that prints of famous pictures as well as Waterloo medals are available at more accessible prices.
The Waterloo Medal, left, was awarded to any soldier who took part in the battle, or in those of Ligny and Quatre Bras, two days previously. Military auctioneer Dix Noonan Webb sold a Waterloo medal last week for a hammer price of £2,600 – £3,120 including commission. Will Bennett, of the firm, says that although the medal’s owner was only a private, he was from a good regiment – the Grenadier Guards – and had been wounded at Waterloo, so was in the thick of the battle. ‘This made the medal more desirable,’ he says.