The trade, keen to secure individual lots – in particular some unique tea and coffee canisters – had put
considerable pressure on the auctioneers to parcel up the interior into separate lots, but the vendor, Philip Parkes, wanted everything to stay together and Walker Barnett & Hill were confident that a buyer for the ensemble could be found… and at considerably more than the £40,000 at which the National Trust had valued it.
In the event, their confidence was rewarded with a £112,000 bid from a private buyer on the telephone, who expressed their intention of recreating the interior in its entirety elsewhere. The auctioneers believe that the buyer intends to keep their purchase in this country but are unsure as to whether the public will ever be granted access to it. Such access would have been guaranteed had the contents gone to the underbidder, the Cornwall-based Flambards Museum.
Closed shop pays a £112,000 dividend
Auctioneers Walker Barnett & Hill (buyer’s premium 15 per cent) were understandably celebrating their decision not to break up the contents of WTM Snape’s Tea and Coffee Merchants of Queen Street, Wolverhampton, right, when they were put up for sale on September 30.
