Best of the silver was a four-piece tea service of oval form by Mappin & Webb. The half reed set with neoclassical decoration went at £600.
Flatware is generally popular and a small quantity of Georgian and other cutlery went to the silver trade at £460. The poor condition of a silver wine funnel kept the estimate down to £20-30 but the popularity of wine-related items resulted in spirited bidding and it sold at £460.
Like silver, credenzas meet a more critical audience than used to be the case but a Victorian ebonised example got away well enough.
With gilt metal mounts to the frieze drawer and two doors with applied oval and foliate gilt metal panels with a central copper finish musical plaque flanked by caryatids and roses, the credenza caught the eye of a Kent dealer who secured it for a mid-estimate £900.
Elsewhere in the furniture a Victorian mahogany chest of two short and three long drawers on a plinth base went to the London trade at £250 and an Edwardian plain mahogany butler’s tray and stand brought a mid-estimate £210 from a Sussex dealer.
Oriental porcelain provided the main ceramics interest with a famille rose rectangular meat platter going to a local dealer at £300, while from Britain a 19th century New Stone large meat plate sold at £100.
Crow’s Auction Gallery, Dorking, April 25
Buyer’s premium: 10 per cent
Silver standards up to mark
UK: A number of auctioneers have remarked on a rather flat silver market of late but the Surrey auctioneers Crow's saw no such reluctance among buyers with a number of offerings going well above estimate.
