STUDIES IN BOWLS

TI IIS silver Porringer, or Bowl, Caudle Cup and Cover, call it what you will. realised £28 per oz., or £1,729. on the Thursday before Good Friday, the buyer being Mr. S. H. Harris. It was only on the Monday prior that a well-known collector of silver telephoned and asked me to enter it in the sale. Most of the catalogues are printed on my premises and completed the same day, and everything, including the bow!, was on view Tuesday and Wednesday and sold on Thursday, March 28th.

Porringer.

Should anyone think that the business was too hurried, let me say once again experto crede. I am well aware that I am crux criticorum, but possibly that price creates a record for any other auction room. I believe, however, that the record per oz. was for a similar porringer weighing 47oz. which I sold to the collector for whom I sold the one mentioned above, the price being £32 1 Is. per oz., total £1,530.

The sale of the next bowl illustrated. I maintain, created a record, at any rate for the last five years. I collected it on one of my motor tours on Saturday, March 9, and the following Friday sold it for £86 per oz. Kindly note the total is not given because I fear the buyer might object. According to the Press some very valuable cups are to be sold shortly, and it will be interesting to compare prices per oz. with the foregoing results.

Sold for £86 per oz.

I am but an infant in auctioneering, having started only eleven years ago, when I made o-Ier my dealer's business (in jewellery and silver plate, at 8 Cullum Street, Fenchurch Street, in the City of London) to my manager. The business was carried on in two little rooms over a tailor's shop and half of a small roam on second floor, and which are now occupied by Mr. H. G. Harrison, who joined the staff in March, 1890. He carries on under the title of Hurcomb and Co.- Since I became an auctioneer I have sold 2,111,520oz. of SILVER (two million one

hundred and eleven thousand five hundred and twenty), or approximately 88 TONS. York and 30 miles round has been a most prolific field, as I have visited nearly everybody who is anybody in that district. The late Lord Wenlock's silver was packed in no fewer than fourteen iron-bound chests. Here is a little scene ere I left at 1.35 on Oct. 17th, 1928, having valued it all before noon. Put 3cwt. on the luggage-carrier and 7cwt. in the Austin 20 Landaulette, and after tea at Stamford, travelled over the same Great The young Peeress held her glass aloft, and proposed success to the Sale.

North Road as Mr. Richard Turpin, another notorious highwayman, arriving home 7.30 p.m.

I sold all the property at auction a week later for a few thousand pounds more than the vendors expected. A brace or two of pheasants came along as a mark of appreciation and a very nice letter. A much heavier lot came from a very near neighbour which was too heavy for the car, so I sent the car on its journey with my art expert while I accompanied the estate lorry with the half-a-ton or more to the station, and travelled with Silver in the guard's van from Hull. I left the most valuable behind—I mean the smaller and select pieces. But one piece was brought to town later which someone else valued at £3,000. (See illustra- tion.) I said it was an impossible price and The Spice Box.

failed to sell it, and that may account for the other few special pieces going elsewhere.

It remains to be seen whether booming in the press, apart from advertising, will result in £3,000 being reached. All this is fairly recent history, but the following is something right up-to-date. Again quite near York. On Wednesday before Good Friday I interviewed a nobleman and valued a similar Spice Box (and other silver) for insurance purposes while it is at the forthcoming exhibition at Lord Howard de Walden's. But I brought away a few thousand ounces of Queen Anne and other silver and a few thousand ounces of later period, all of which were on view Wednesday. 10th, and Thursday. 11 th, and sold on Friday, 12th. There will also be on view the St. Michael's Cup (see next page) which was exhibited at Sir Philip Sassoon's exhibition (March 5th-24th) and was one of the many pieces valued at £3,000,000 (three million pounds). The Chan- cellor of the Diocese will not allow it to be sold by auction at present, and I have already offered to give £2,000 on account, but it must be sold in accordance with the faculty. Par- ticulars on application. Meanwhile I hope to secure an offer of nearer £5,000. Why is the Cup (or Tazza) worth £200 to £300 per oz.? There is only one reason, and that is the ecclesiastical law which only in exceptional cases grants a faculty for the sale of Church plate, and it is rarely such is allowed to come on the market. There are thousands of chalices, flagons, and patens in this country that escaped the fate of so much domestic silver of the troublous times of the Commonwealth-95 per cent. of it, I suppose, was destroyed, so it is simply a case of supply and demand that makes Church plate so valuable.

The Waterbeach Cup which I Collected from the Victoria and Albert Museum was sold at Piccadilly for £2,000, and it is now back again at the Victoria and Albert. The purchase price works out at £143 per oz. It may seem dreadful to say so, but this early 15th Century vessel, looking so much like a salad bowl, was really a wooden bowl made of maple wood, with about 12s. worth of silver round the edge and foot, it was my pleasure to sell for no less than £10,000. I fixed the reserve because I knew I should obtain that sum. There was no spirited bidding. Experto crede, who is crux criticorurn. There was no excitement—a crowded room; when that lot was reached one could hear a pin drop. I could not obtain a bid for some seconds, although it seemed more like minutes. So I started it at £9,750. Instantly Mr. Lionel Crichton gave one flutter of his catalogue. Crux crilicorum let the hammer fall, and the historic bowl was sold for £10,000—a record that may never be beaten. Shortly afterwards I had a hammer To the Wizard, from C. W. H., 18/11/27.

presented by Mr. C. W. Holmes, of Bond Street, as a little memento of that red letter day, which 1 have used ever since.

Mr. Garvin, writing in the " Observer," March 17th, said: " The Socialist Miss Jenny Lee, a girl of twenty-four, is an Edinburgh graduate and a miner s daughter, an example of the new political world into which we shall enter at the end of May.- On my travels up and down the country It is distressing to hear of the fears from the lips of the fixed-income classes, but I am as optimistic as ever and will not meet troubles half-way and not pay interest on troubles that may not fall due—but there is the dread of a slump in prices on the part of the heavily taxed fixed-income classes. I should like everyone to obtain the sanction of the Court to sell the silver lying in the bank or in the strong rooms of their homes, which is seldom seen and never used.

If a political upheaval is feared I shall be pleased to call personally, free of charge, make a valuation and a declaration for the Court, and arrange matters in conjunction with the

family lawyer. Think of the absurdity of keeping silver and jewels, &c., locked up. never seeing the light of day! Don't be afraid be- cause so much is leaving the Homeland for the States. The 88 tons of ancestral silver sold by me is but a small proportion of what still remains. The wonderful display of silver at the Victoria and Albert Museum should be seen. I have sold some that had been on loan and I fully expect to sell more. The display at Sir Philip Sassoon's and that to be exhibited at Lord Howard de Walden's proves that we still have hundreds of tons in the Homeland.

Amongst the silver sold the Thursday before Good Friday, Lot 309. owner expected £24. It was a Georgian bowl, 9/ozs.: the owner will have £143 133.9d., less 7/ per cent. commission. Lot 304 was another cylindrical dome top pepper pot (we call it a kitchen pepper), weight nom. realised £69 10s. It was of the Georgian period. Lot 332, a Geo. III. tea caddy—sold for well over double the amount owner ex- pected. £154 ls. Od., less my 7b per cent. commission.

The porringer illustrated in the " Times - and " Morning Post,- was even more startling,

and realised, as stated above, £1,729. The most important piece of jewellery, Lot 437, sold for £5,650—a wonderful price. The owner of Lot 182 will be pleased to have £400 instead of £100 for a six-fold leather screen painted with Chinese figures (but very faulty). Lot 49, two books of autograph letters. including Pope, Thackeray, Sir J. Reynolds, Wilkie, and others for £145, seven times more than expected. The owner of a 6-inch Whielden figure, and another lot will have £200 more than expected. The owner of Lot 83—a bracket clock-1185 more!

I see Lord Sackville's silver is likely to come under the hammer: " The ' Daily Express ' understands that Lord Sackville, Lieutenant- Governor of Guernsey, is contemplating the sale of a portion of the magnificent collection of old silver at Knole, his country seat near Sevenoaks. Kent.

Lord Sackville is retiring shortly, and hopes to live in future at Knole.

The silver lent by him was among the most valuable and interesting at the recent exhibition of old English plate at Sir Philip Sassoon's house in Park Lane.

It included the famous Knole pieces of the Restoration period, with toilet services, tankards, and porringers of the same date.

A Charles II. toilet service, designed with stippled panels bearing the monogram of the Northamptons, was one of the most coveted of the exhibits. Another which attracted much attention was a William and Mary silver-gilt tankard engraved with the royal arms, garter, and motto.

If any of these exhibits were to reach the salerooms collectors would flock from all over the world, and record prices would be certain."

My recent journey was mainly for looking at similar silver to value and to prepare for a legal declaration to secure the order of the Court. The Waterbeach Cup.

The above Cup and Bowl sold to the same Collector for £1,835.

SI. Michael Cup and Hallmarks (Southampton).