This large collectable group had no trouble eclipsing its modest £500-600 estimate selling at £4900, while continuing demand from wealthy farmers for unusual Beswick farm animals saw an Eaton Wild Eyes 91st dairy shorthorn with a calf fetch £1350.
The biggest surprise for the auctioneers was the reaction to a French Empire glass vase, engraved to one side with Napoleon standing at a fireplace with a lady kneeling before him and to the other with mounted officers removing a dead soldier from a battlefield.
Although it was lacking its handles and had been broken at the base, its quality and subject matter attracted several buyers who pursued it to £3000.
Also finding a ready home was a mahogany-cased bracket clock by the London maker James Forsyth. Standing 17 3/4in (45cm) high, this elegant, bell-topped timepiece was contested to £4500.
Elsewhere, the quality of a couple of the modern diamond jewellery entries would not have looked out of place in a Geneva sale, with an 18ct white gold single stone 9.38ct tinted yellow diamond ring exceeding pre-sale expectations at £23,500.
Danish Dutch children are Cheshire stars
Peter Wilson, Nantwich November 17-18 Buyer’s premium: 15 per cent ALTHOUGH bidding was selective at this Cheshire sale, with only around 65 per cent of the 780 lots finding buyers, there was healthy competition for collectable ceramics such as a Royal Copenhagen set of ten colourful figures of children dressed in traditional Dutch costume by Carl Martin Hansen (1877-1941).
