Features

This novelty silver scent bottle, below, appealing to two niche sections largely immune to the swings of the larger silver market, was a target for collectors when offered at Chiswick Auctions (25% buyer’s premium).

Not every Victorian silver tea and coffee service was sold for scrap in the great meltdown of 2011– when at one point the price reached almost £30 per oz.

These outsize tongs, below, proved the major surprise at Adam’s (20% buyer’s premium) in Dublin on June 17.

As collecting evolves, many pieces of decorative, and historically captivating, Georgian silver are priced very keenly at both auction and retail.

The recent death of designer Stuart Devlin and the book he published just a few months before could lead to a reappraisal of his work.

Considering that Norwich was, after London, the largest and wealthiest city in England from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution, its assay office (1562-1705) was comparatively shortlived. As such, secular silver produced in the city rarely appears on the market.

Woolley & Wallis (25% buyer’s premium) is currently selling across a number of auctions a cache of items from the family of HG Murphy (1884-1939), whose Falcon Studio produced some of the finest English silver of the inter-war era.

While the big-money lots often steal the headlines, much of the antiquities market remains affordable.

The rise of modern and contemporary collectors buying antiquities has energised dealers and auction houses to juxtapose old with new. But it can be hard to pull off.

A hint of defiance was in the air during the latest round of London antiquities sales held at Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Bonhams (25/20/12.5-12.9% buyer’s premium).

As the market develops, some of the ‘secondary’ niche Swiss brands have entered the mainstream collecting arena. The Bonhams (25% buyer’s premium) Fine Watches and Wristwatches sale on June 20 offered a range of 46 Heuers from a single-owner private collection.

A selection of wristwatch previews.

Legend has it that, while on safari in Africa with her lover and employer Louis Cartier, Jeanne Toussaint spotted a panther and immediately exclaimed: “Onyx, diamonds, emeralds – a brooch!” The Cartier range of feline jewels was born.

A selection of wristwatch previews.

A selection of wristwatch previews.

This Egyptian revival gold, enamel and gem-set collar necklace below established a new record for the jewellery of Marie Zimmermann (1879-1972) at Rago in Lambertville, New Jersey (25% buyer’s premium) on June 10.

A selection of wristwatch previews.

A selection of wristwatch previews.

A hairwork bracelet offered at auction was inscribed to a gold mount: From the Mane of the Charger Copenhagen which carried the Duke of Wellington 18 successive hours on the 18th June 1815, The Battle of Waterloo.

This red coral necklace had formed part of The International Fisheries Exhibition staged at the Royal Horticultural Society grounds in South Kensington in 1883.