22 19th June 2010 auction reports


A silver lining in Cheshire


A PARTICULARLY good silver offering, numbering 146 lots, was the core of the sale held in Hale, Altrincham by Patrick Cheyne (15% buyer’s premium) on May 22.


The auctioneer described this pair of George III cast silver candlesticks marked for 1762 by William Cafe as probably the finest pair of this otherwise standard model he had ever sold. They were in sufficiently good condition to bring £2400 from a private collector in the room. Three early 17th century spoons


were entered by the widow of a naval officer. The best of these was a James I seal-top spoon, London 1619, with the maker’s mark of a mullet within a crescent. With a fig shaped bowl and hexagonal stem it measured 61 sold for £1350.


/2 in (16.5cm) long. It


Another seal-top with pricked initials of WL over MM to the terminal and dated 1652, believed to be by Stephen Venables, followed closely behind at £1300 while a ‘slipped in the stalk’ slip- top spoon marked for 1607 believed to be by James Cluatt, sold for £900.


A popular lot was a George III silver ship’s pocket silver compass dated 1808 with white enamelled dial inscribed Blunt, London. It came in a rather dilapidated red morocco case and sold for £820. It had no maker’s mark – although silver cased compasses so rarely do.


The leading furniture lot was a fine Regency davenport with sliding top, hinged ink drawer and fine feather veneers. This model, and the use of real and dummy drawer fronts, is typically associated with Gillows. It sold for a modest but nonetheless market price of £1600.


Right: this evocative photograph taken


outside the White Rose Motor Tours office depicts a vehicle that was nearly 30ft long including 40 seats and dual entrance. The saloon


accommodated 39 people in two compartments (smoking and non- smoking)


with the 40th


passenger sitting next to the driver.


The £2800 busman’s holiday


A UNIQUE collection of more than 600 photographic negatives of the charabancs, omnibuses and coaches that carried tourists around the Edwardian beauty spots of North Wales have been saved for posterity – and further research – by the national Omnibus Society. Society archivist Derek Broadhurst of Powys travelled to Colwyn Bay for the Rogers Jones (12.5% buyer’s premium) sale of May 25 to secure the collection with a winning bid of £2800 (estimate £1000-2000). Private collectors from the UK and


Europe were among the disappointed underbidders, as was a representative from the Crosville Archive Trust. The negatives had been amassed over a lifetime by Rhyl enthusiast John Nickels. He was a member of the Crosville Enthusiasts’ Club and the Model Bus


Federation, but his main interest was the White Rose Motor Services company, founded in Rhyl by the Brookes Brothers. They started in 1912 running charabancs to local beauty spots but comprised a fleet of just under 100 buses and coaches when they were taken over by Crosville in 1930. Mr Broadhurst said the cache of material will join the archive of the Omnibus Society which is based in the Midlands. “I thought the collection had been lost. I knew John Nickels but following his death [in 2000], I feared it had been destroyed or thrown away. “I understand Mr Nickels planned to write a book about the White Rose company – now perhaps someone else will come forward and take on the project.”


Despite holding a HGV licence, John From £5 to £2000 – the ultimate in recycling


Above: George III candlesticks by William Café, £2400.


THE market for tinglazed earthenwares has undoubtedly slipped in recent years along with other categories of early English pottery – but not so much that it merits recycling. Clearly it is possible to take the ‘antiques are green’ message a step too far. A couple from Aylesbeare, a small village in East Devon, recently spotted three delft apothecary jars at their local recycling depot and bought them from the attendant for just £5. A valuer at Potburys Auction Rooms (15% buyer’s premium) in Sidmouth was able to identify them as late 17th or early 18th century London productions and anticipated a handsome profit on what had been a speculative outlay when they were sold on May 25. The best of the three jars in terms of condition stood 7in (18cm) high and was


decorated in underglaze blue with a label inscribed Ther:andr. This particular remedy, known as Theriac of Andromachus, had 73 ingredients including viper’s flesh. It was used as an antidote against snakebites. The haloed figure atop this particular label is the radiant head of Apollo, the god of healing who appears on the arms of the Society of Apothecaries. With some fritting of the glaze to both the rim and the foot, it took £1600.


A pair of early 18th century dry drug jars with song bird and fruit basket labels inscribed C.loh:sava and on the other V.Comilissa, standing 8in (20cm) high, were both damaged with one missing a very significant portion of the rim. Nonetheless they took £560. Both lots were bought by the same telephone buyer.


Nickels never drove a bus. After seeing action in Africa, throughout Europe and Greece with the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, he came home to a desk job, working for Rhyl council, first in the finance department and then the tourist office.


Among the collection were evocative snapshots of the Carnarvon Motors fleet of buses lined up in the town’s Castle Square that carried passengers of scheduled services to such places at Llanberis, Pwhelli, Beddgelert, and Bethel; the first motor bus to run in Dyserth “This Bus Takes You Direct to The Marine Lane & Pleasure Park”, dated June 1912; and, modern by comparison, coaches operated by Pye’s Motor Tours of Rhos-on-Sea and “Walsh’s Crimson Coaches”.


Roland Arkell


Above: rescued from a refuse tip, this late 17th century London delft dry drug jar for Theriac of Andromachus sold at £1600.


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