By the Dart • Antiques Reaching buyers worldwide
s the largest auctioneers in the South West, Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood have continued to develop the range of services offered to our clients, including the effective use of the internet and live bidding facilities. Many people doubted the practicalities and demand for internet bidding, perhaps in the same way that the ‘Old Guard’ scoffed their noses when the first auction house dared sell anything later than 1840 as antique.
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After a few stalled start-ups in the late 1980s and early 90s, the real development has occurred over the past ten years with the expansion of the internet and the rise of more affordable and faster home computers. The fate of the auctioneer has not fallen to the digital age as many predicted and in some cases, such as Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood, the merging of old and new has proven to be very beneficial. By adjusting cataloguing styles and photographing every lot to be illustrated online, the result has seen prices rise for many items within the Fine Art and Specialist auctions. As well as this, the internet has also increased the number of items being consigned both locally and from further afield.
It has been over six years since we sold a Bovey
Tracey Pottery blue and white mess bowl for a record £3,000 and yet I still receive emails and phone calls from people who have found one in a cupboard somewhere. In our recent Sporting & Collectors’ auction a very rare and early prototype air pistol sold for £1,600. A blog posted
on our website before the auction announcing the find soon set collectors’ talking on several forums in anticipation. I don’t know how they’ll react if I tell them I had a phone call from another gentleman who has one exactly the same (having seen the item in question, it is also in better condition than the previous one!) By carefully marketing the piece it resulted in both a good sale and another potential vendor. As the digital world gets smaller and faster, Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood have been developing new ideas and auction practices to reach a worldwide audience from the saleroom complex in Exeter. In fact, the forthcoming June auction of the Tony & Yvonne Pardoe Collection of Diving Helmets and Equipment is a perfect example of how we are reaching buyers on a world wide scale for niche auctions and single owner collections. With over 150 diving helmets from manufacturers from around the world, I have already had dozens of emails requesting further information and catalogue requests months in advance of the auction date. Even using social media such as Twitter, we have reached international buyers and collectors’ for diving helmets, a niche market that standard advertising would not have done so.
So far from being a nail in the coffin for
auctioneers, the internet has been embraced by Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood as an effective tool to hone and develop years of traditional skill and knowledge for the 21st
century and beyond. Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood T:01392 413100
75
ANTIQUES, JEWELLERY & MARITIME VALUATION DAY KINGSBRIDGE
Tuesday 5th April 10.00am - 1.00pm at Harbour House The Promenade
All enquiries please call 01392 413100
A Chinese porcelain famille rose cockerel bowl Sold for £2,500
St. Edmund’s Court, Okehampton Street, Exeter. EX4 1DU T: 01392 413100 W:
www.bhandl.co.uk
E:
enquiries@bhandl.co.uk
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