At Anderson & Garland (20% buyer’s premium) of Westerhope, near Newcastle on April 12, a group of Aboriginal items left sold at £37,000 after a battle between two online bidders.
The quartet of items, all thought to be 19th century, came from a small house clearance in Gosforth. Fred Wyrley- Birch, who heads the collectors’ department at A&G, had hoped the family would be able to shed some light on their provenance but he said this was now “lost in the mists of time”.
The lot included a classic 3ft 4in (1.03m) broad shield with four stone carved panels of a type commonly associated with the Murray River region. Other examples have sold for sums between £10,000-50,000 in recent years.
Also included in the lot was a large mulga wood fighting boomerang, a south-east Australia fighting club engraved to the head with a pattern of dots and diamonds and a textured grip plus a carved spear thrower or woomera.
