Allum's Antiques Almanac 2016 E-Book

Marc Allum

• Herausgeber: Icon Books
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 288

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

From BBC Antiques Roadshow specialist and author Marc Allum comes the second instalment of his annual almanac, revealing the current news, tall tales and tasty titbits from the year in art, antiques and collectables: What do London Bridge and a £40,000 corkscrew have in common? Which famous pop star depicted by Andy Warhol realised £51.6 million at a recent auction? How much did Oliver Cromwell's coffin plate sell for, and what happened to his famous wart? Which Hollywood film led to the recovery of a Hungarian avant garde masterpiece? What would a collector pay for the real Batmobile? Why did a tiny portrait of Mozart - only four centimetres high - sell for £218,500? Answers to these and many other fascinating questions make this the essential guide this autumn for all ardent fans of art, antiques and collectables.

Leseprobe

Allum’s

ANTIQUES ALMANAC 2016

Also by Marc Allum

The Collector’s Cabinet: Tales, Facts and Fictions from the World of Antiques

Allum’s

ANTIQUES ALMANAC 2016

An annual compendium of stories and facts from the world of art and antiques

MARC ALLUM

Published in the UK in 2015 by

Icon Books Ltd, Omnibus Business Centre, 39–41 North Road, London N7 9DP email: [email protected]

www.iconbooks.com

Sold in the UK, Europe and Asia

by Faber & Faber Ltd, Bloomsbury House, 74–77 Great Russell Street,

London WC1B 3DA or their agents

Distributed in the UK, Europe and Asia

by TBS Ltd, TBS Distribution Centre, Colchester Road, Frating Green, Colchester CO7 7DW

Distributed in Australia and New Zealand by Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd,

PO Box 8500, 83 Alexander Street,

Crows Nest, NSW 2065

Distributed in South Africa by

Jonathan Ball, Office B4, The District,

41 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock 7925

Distributed in India by Penguin Books India, 7th Floor, Infinity Tower – C, DLF Cyber City, Gurgaon 122002, Haryana

Distributed in Canada by Publishers Group Canada,

76 Stafford Street, Unit 300

Toronto, Ontario M6J 2S1

ISBN: 978-184831-936-3

Text copyright © 2015 Marc Allum

The author has asserted his moral rights.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Typeset in Van Dijck by Marie Doherty

Printed and bound in the UK by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers —ISAAC ASIMOV

This book is dedicated to the many people who have afforded me the opportunities to be myself – thank you.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Marc Allum is an anachronism. Critics would say that he spends far too much time living in the past, but the simple truth is that he has found a career in antiques to be the most practical form of time-travel yet devised. So whatever epoch you choose, Marc will likely have something to say about it. Whether he’s muzzle-loading a Kentucky long gun or soldering a 1960s amplifier, he will always be looking for an experience, an inroad, an insight. So, as this book goes to press, his garden will have been dug for the second time this year by the local archaeologists intent on finding traces of King Alfred’s palace, which may be under his house. And as his work as a specialist on the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow enters its eighteenth year, a position he considers both a love and a privilege, his pursuit of authorial time-shifting notoriety seems likely to continue.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

Feeling Constable?

London Calling

Dog On

Warts and All

Black and White

Holy Backfire!

Baltic Beauty

Rivet Rivet

Jamaica Rum

Lost Chaney

Mug Shot

Triumphant

Battle Orders

Cock-a-Hoop

Launch Night

Baby Doll

Cash Cow

Black Beauty

Subject Matters

Skip Cat

Down Under

Rock Steady

Sun Stroke

Fringe Benefits

Hat Trick

Space Odyssey

Blind Vision

Pound for Pound

Freak Show

In a Bind

Princely Sum

Bounty Hunter

Rape and Pillage

Benchmark

Modern First

Cabinet Maker

Murder Most Horrid

Indian Takeaway

Bacon and Eggs

Mum and Dad

Living Buddhas

Storage Wars

Right Royal

Love Tie

From the Bridge

Leg Man

Horse Play

Temple of Delights

Bird in the Hand

Wheels of Industry

Roman Riches

Legless

Favourite Finds

Poles Apart II

Black Basalt

Butt Man

Royal Mug

Piano Lesson

Burlesque Beauties

Toy Town

Margin Scheme

Two’s Company

Feather Boa

Coffee Shop Curators

Irish Times

Braveheart

Bicorn or Tricorn

Sunny Side Up

Record Breaker

Mud Bath

Scrap Heap

Churchill’s Crown

American Beauty

Budgie Smuggler

Bear Witness

Yellow Midget

Weight of the World

Stick Shift

Masthead

Blood is Thicker

Arms House

Black Magic

Time Team

Ring-a-Ding

Out of Time

Cock Up

Real or No Real

Mechanical Marvel

Spice Trade

Silver Screen Siren

Going, Going, Gone

Case Study

Just the Ticket

Gangster Rap

Wine Vinegar

A Wee Dram

Holy Hoaxes

Muzzle Loader

Narcotics Bust

Record Record

Blackboard Scribble

Flayed Alive!

Newsflash

Burnt Offering

Meiji Marvel

Here Pussy Pussy

Feathers or Kapok?

Lunar Love

Freeze Dried

American Realist

An Enigma

Einstein A-go-go

Mythical Beasts

Ivory Queen

Gottle o’ Geer

Reel Time

Barbarian Hordes

Woodn’t it be Nice

Scraps of Knowledge

Feeling Less Constable

Sèvres You Right

Liar Liar

War Torn

High Calibre

Grave Thought

Drink Up

Take That

Design for Life

What the Dickens

Attic Find

Persian Perfection

Flat Weave

Mysore Magic

Field Find

Devo-Max

Happy Birthday

Lots of Bottle

Just One Drink

Slave Trader

Cable Tie

EPILOGUE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

PICTURE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INTRODUCTION

Writing a time-sensitive almanac is a little like trying to prepare your tax return. It often leads to confusion, as, rather than accidentally attributing a train ticket to the wrong tax year, I have to keep thinking about whether the information I am collecting falls into the right literary year. Whereas the tax year runs from April to April and seems to be devilishly designed to hit all of us self-employed people with a bill straight after Christmas, my writing year is staggered, with the idea of being both retrospective and forward-thinking while still allowing Allum’s Antiques Almanac to be out in time for Christmas – emblazoned with next year’s date. It’s rather like the magazine deadlines I often work to, when I find myself looking at Victorian Christmas decorations in August and the magazines are busily roasting turkeys and decorating cottages under sunny skies as their festive copy deadlines approach. In my case, stories eagerly jostle for position in the final ‘cut’ as I discard some lesser tales in favour of others that sound more alluring. It’s frustrating, but I’m continually faced with any number of pieces that I wish I could have written about – particularly past gems that surface while I am gathering current material – yet, you will notice that I have a knack of weaving in the two, both past and present, in order that I can satisfy both my own curiosity and the desire to include even more macabre, extraordinary and price-busting news, anecdotes and gossip. It’s the eternal collector’s conundrum, the desire to want it all but, for the sake of one’s own sanity, the need to be selective and keep only certain pieces. In essence, each Allum’s Almanac is exactly that: another collection, another way of selfishly indulging my main passion.

This being the second volume, and given the experience gained in writing the 2015 edition, I’m hoping that my propensity for gathering such information has been honed somewhat and is working more efficiently. In time, the Almanac will undoubtedly serve as a kind of quirky barometer, a measure of market trends and fashion, the bevelled glass tapped out of curiosity to see whether the needle favours stormy or changeable, rather than being regarded as a dry, number-crunching bean-counter’s bible. This is a book based on passion, for there is little in the way of science in this captivating and sometimes odd world. This is not a technical manual about antiques – you won’t learn how to conquer the art market by reading this book. This is, plain and simple, my whim, my love, a shameless, thought-provoking personal expedition through the Himalayas of the art market wearing wholly unsuitable boots.

I’m often asked ‘where do you get all the stories from?’ It’s a good question. Trade publications, friends in bars, other auctioneers, chance meetings with obsessive collectors, chats with museum curators; there are too many sources to mention, each slavishly logged in my ever-enquiring head, each one a step closer to the summit, but a gentle ascent nevertheless, rather than an oxygen-starved battle against the elements, for compiling Allum’s Antiques Almanac is actually an enjoyable experience that takes me closer to those realms of the market that still make me marvel … how lucky I am. Enjoy!

Feeling Constable?

Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known —OSCAR WILDE

Did you know that Salisbury is the only city in Wiltshire? Just the sort of fact that you might find useful at the local pub quiz; but, armed with an assignment by county magazine Wiltshire Life, I found myself on a cold, windy winter’s day being buffeted around the old Iron Age earthworks of Old Sarum, just outside the historic city of Salisbury, with that fact foremost in my mind. It’s a job I love, visiting a different Wiltshire settlement every month, wandering around extracting strange idiosyncratic information on history, customs, craftsmen … and of course antiques. My remit is pretty lax and I enjoy chatting with locals, brazenly requesting admission to odd places and getting to know Wiltshire better, in what can only be described as ‘an antique lover’s peregrination in God’s own county’ (with apologies to Hogarth).

Salisbury, with its great 13th-century cathedral, is of course a historic place. Its origins at Old Sarum span several millennia and the medieval fortified town and castle that grew up within the Iron Age ramparts would have certainly been a gem, had they not been demolished and relocated to the plain below in what we now know as the city. The famous English painter John Constable (1776–1837) would have seen it in much the same way as I did, and his sketches attest to that. However, it’s his paintings of the cathedral itself that perhaps epitomise his quintessentially English style. Constable images have become part of our romantic notion of what Britain looked like in the late 18th and early 19th century – the iconic The Hay Wain, an image which hung above my grandmother’s fireplace, will be for ever indelibly burnt on to the art history timeline of my life.

Like many great artists, he was also much copied, so perhaps it was of little surprise to see that an oil sketch which appeared at a Christie’s sale in 2013, and which closely resembled Constable’s masterpiece Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows, was attributed to a follower. You’ve probably guessed where this is going … valued at £500, it was knocked down for £3,500. Subsequent cleaning by the new owner and verification by a leading authority on Constable then propelled it into a different league when it was confirmed to be a preparatory sketch for that monumental picture, which is held by the Tate.

The study in question had previously been in the collection of the Hambleden family and was sold off as part of the contents of Hambleden Manor in 2007. After the 2013 sale it was re-offered by Sotheby’s with a £2 million estimate and sold – inclusive of commission – for a whopping £3.4 million! Quite a tidy profit, rewarding a person who presumably backed a hunch. However, this too seems relatively good value when you look at the £23.1 million paid by the Tate and four other galleries to keep the finished work (it was originally loaned to the London gallery some 30 years ago). This private arrangement prevents the picture from ever leaving the country, ensuring it will always be on public display; however, most pundits agree that it would certainly have realised much more had it been put on the open market.

London Calling

What do London Bridge and a corkscrew have in common? Firstly – before I answer that – it’s probably a good idea to give you some history. It’s thought, although not conclusively proven, that a bridge has spanned the Thames at London since at least Roman times. In fact, London would not have evolved as it did had it not been for a succession of bridges. Prior to this, the very different river landscape with its marshy banks would have been forded or perhaps traversed by boats, perhaps beyond the tidal reach.

After the Romans departed, Londinium fell into a state of disrepair and was abandoned. The bridge would have suffered a similar fate but several subsequent early medieval bridges built by the Saxon kings would have become important strategic elements of the now re-established post-Roman settlements of London and Southwark. Evidence of a bridge apparently exists in a Saxon record.

The bridge was rebuilt by King William I after the Norman conquest of 1066 and then subsequently destroyed by a tornado some 30 years later. The last wooden bridge was finally built in 1163 and was managed by the ‘Brethren of the Bridge’, a monastic guild established by Henry II.

However, the bridge that we all associate most with the famous Thames crossing is the ‘old’ medieval London Bridge, a precarious-looking structure of nineteen asymmetrical stone arches with a central drawbridge, bristling with overhanging shops, dwellings and latrines. The infamous Traitor’s Gate at the southern end, which used to display a gory collection of decapitated heads from executed treasonous individuals, can clearly be seen in Claes Van Visscher’s engraving of 1616. Begun in 1209 and demolished in 1831, it was an incredible construction which morphed throughout its 600-year history into a legendary landmark. However, its existence was eventually compromised by its poor structural condition, its detrimental effect on the flow of the Thames and its restrictive effect on shipping, combined with its inability to cope with the large volume of traffic needing to cross the river. The new bridge, designed by John Rennie, was begun in 1824 and opened in 1831. It cost £2.5 million, the equivalent of £198 million today.

Most of us are familiar with the story of the American oil magnate Robert P. McCulloch’s purchase of London Bridge in 1968, when it was decided to replace Rennie’s granite monster with a more modern construction. The replacement bridge was opened in 1973 by the Queen. However, the idea that McCulloch thought he was buying the more picturesque Tower Bridge seems to be little more than an urban myth. The bridge is now located at Lake Havasu City in Arizona.

Given the enormity of these past constructions it seems likely that parts of them might still exist, and furthermore that souvenirs of their demise might also have been created. Not surprisingly, I have a bit of a passion for tracking down such artefacts and have a collected a few interesting examples over the years. These include part of a beam from the Norman keep of the Tower of London, bookends fashioned from the stone of the Houses of Parliament – after being bombed by the Luftwaffe – and a box made from part of a wooden pile from the ‘old’ London Bridge. It turned out that after 600 years the wooden piles that the bridge was built upon were in amazingly good condition.

A quick search around the internet also revealed the whereabouts of several original parts of the ‘old’ bridge, including stone niches: two in the gardens of Victoria Park in East London, one in the quadrangle of Guy’s Hospital, and another in the garden of Courtlands, a development of flats in East Sheen, built on the former grounds of a country house. There was once another niche here too, sadly now disappeared.

Much of this material dates from the 18th century and stemmed from changes to the bridge. There are also other pieces of masonry from the medieval bridge at the church of St Magnus the Martyr – designed by Sir Christopher Wren – and apparently at Kew Gardens too. So, that’s the history lesson done. No doubt plenty of other stone is incorporated within the 19th century buildings of London, yet it’s the smaller, quirky souvenirs that myself and others collectors tend to pursue, and that’s where the story of the corkscrew fits in.

Corkscrew collectors can be fairly fanatical. Large prices for rare examples are not uncommon at auction, indeed, I personally found one just a few months ago that realised just shy of £10,000 for a client. However, Essex-based auctioneers Reeman Dansie were somewhat surprised by the price of a previously unseen 19th-century model made by I. Ovenston of 72 Great Titchfield Street, London – an unusual-looking device formed of three bow-shaped pieces of metal, one of them engraved with the words:

Made from the Iron Shoe that was taken from a pillar That was 656 Years in the Foundation of Old London Bridge

It sold for £40,000!

Dog On

I bought my young daughter a book for Christmas. It’s called Crap Taxidermy. Within the pages are a motley but often hilarious collection of what can only be described as a waste of life, because if any of the creatures therein were killed especially to be stuffed, the results do no justice to their appearance in life. Many, of course, were stuffed in the 19th century, and much of their shoddy appearance comes down to shrinkage and poor preservation; yet, as I travel the auction rooms, I often see sad-looking, moth-eaten examples of foxes, hares, game birds and fish that bear little resemblance to their previous selves. However, taxidermy seems to be as popular as ever and even the ‘genre’ featured in my daughter’s book seems to have become a collecting field in its own right.

Recently, while trawling through auction catalogues online, I came across a small Victorian stuffed dog in a case. Hansons in Derbyshire had pitched the estimate pretty low at £30–40 and given that the fashion is currently geared towards such odd items, I decided to keep an eye on it in the optimistic hope that I might stand a chance at £500–600. In the meantime I decided to look at a few stuffed canines to see just how many famous dogs had been preserved for posterity. Not surprisingly, there are quite a few, of which some of my favourites include Whiskey the Turnspit Dog in Abergavenny Museum, apparently the last of a now extinct small breed that used to trundle around in a wheel, rather like a hamster, providing the power to turn the kitchen spit!

Tring Museum in Hertfordshire houses an amazing collection of taxidermy, among which it has a unique collection of 88 Canis familiaris, or domesticated dogs. One of the most famous residents is the iconic greyhound Mick the Miller (1926–39) who, as one of his legendary feats, won nineteen races in a row.

Other famous canines include the many Russian space dogs. Laika, perhaps the best known, was the first animal to orbit the earth, in 1957, in Sputnik II. She unfortunately died only several hours into the mission from overheating – a fact that wasn’t revealed until 2002, although her plight certainly changed the idea of sending non-recoverable animals into space. Needless to say, never having returned, she could not be stuffed. However, two other notable ‘Muttniks’, as the American press dubbed them, were Belka and Strelka, sent up on Sputnik V in 1960, accompanied by a veritable menagerie of mice, flies, rats and a rabbit. Belka and Strelka were the first earth-born creatures to return to earth alive from a space flight. Their taxidermic mortal remains are housed at the Memorial Museum of Astronautics in Moscow.

The more I looked, the more stuffed dogs I found. Owney the Postal Dog, a stray border terrier who was adopted by the Albany, New York Post Office in around 1888, became a famous mascot and covered over 150,000 miles accompanying the post until, apparently, he was shot for being aggressive, which it appears may well have been the subject of a dispute between workers and management. A commemorative stamp was issued for Owney in 2011 and he can be seen in the Smithsonian, where he took up residence in 1911.

Given our general predilection for dogs, they have always been very useful for appealing to the gentler side of human nature and their use as charitable collectors became fashionable in the 19th century. They would spend their time at large railway stations such as Paddington and Waterloo, with collection boxes attached to their backs, raising money for causes such as the orphans of railway workers killed in the more dangerous days of steam. Even after their deaths, several such animals were stuffed and mounted in glass cases to carry on collecting for charity. Famous examples include London Jack, who began his platform-plodding days in 1884. Despite a chequered history, he is now fully restored and can be seen in the Tring collection. Another is Laddie the Airedale, who is on display at the National Railway Museum in York.

As for the small Victorian dog I fancied? Well, it realised a hefty £2,200.

Warts and All

In his book Anecdotes of Painting In England, Horace Walpole famously claimed that Oliver Cromwell’s instruction to the artist Peter Lely was:

I desire you would use all your skill to paint your picture truly like me, and not flatter me at all; but remark all these roughnesses, pimples, warts, and everything as you see me. Otherwise, I will never pay a farthing for it.

This was published in 1764, quite some time after Cromwell’s death, and the quote seems somewhat unsubstantiated. It is, however, the strongest candidate for the origin of the phrase ‘warts and all’, as there certainly seems to be no evidence at all that Cromwell ever uttered those precise words – and his life is amazingly well documented. His famous wart, however, has always been the subject of some debate.

Perhaps the most accurate portrait of Cromwell – and he obviously preferred an accurate portrayal – was by the artist Samuel Cooper. Portraiture expert and Antiques Roadshow specialist Philip Mould staged a wonderful exhibition of miniatures in 2013 in which Cooper’s exquisite miniature of Cromwell was exhibited. I was lucky enough to stand nose to nose with this emotive image and marvel at the skill of, as Mould eloquently said, ‘this great topographer of the human face’. (On his death, Cromwell’s son made a visit to Cooper’s studio to buy the miniature of his father and – so the story goes – Cooper demanded £100 instead of the usual £20, which Richard Cromwell duly paid.)

In Cooper’s work, Cromwell’s wart appears in all its glory – rather flaky-looking, in fact. Yet in other representations, particularly his death mask, the wart appears to be absent. Conjecture about this refers to embalming methods and also a documented story about the wart being ‘historically’ removed and later donated to the collection of the Society of Antiquaries. Although now long disappeared, it was by all accounts kept in a matchbox and taken to social gatherings by a secretary of the Society, to amuse guests.

In 1658, three years after his burial in Westminster Abbey, Cromwell was exhumed. As you can imagine, Charles II was not in a forgiving mood and with the restoration of the monarchy, Cromwell’s body was taken to Tyburn and ritually executed. His skull was – according to tradition – stuck on a spike outside Westminster Hall, where it remained for 25 years. As to its whereabouts now, well, it’s thought that the skull with the best claim was buried in 1960 in the courtyard of his old college, Sidney Sussex at Cambridge.

Where is this all leading? Well, I collect coffin plates. Among a varied selection are several pressed Victorian examples featuring angels, truncated columns and such like. One of my favourites is a large brass hand-engraved plaque for a Richard Smith Esq., who passed away in 1776. So I was rather intrigued to see that the opportunity to buy Oliver Cromwell’s burial plaque was afoot at a Sotheby’s English Literature and History Auction. Frankly, this was only a wishlist item as it was undoubtedly – to my mind – one of the most historic objects to surface on the market for some time. The gilt bronze plaque, beautifully engraved with his coat of arms, was apparently meant to lay on Cromwell’s chest but was in fact put in a lead case within his lead anthropoid coffin. Obviously removed on his exhumation, the plate had passed through several generations of the Norfolke family before being acquired by the Harcourt family – famous antiquarian collectors – in the 19th century. The lack of precedence saw Sotheby’s playing it safe with an estimate of £8,000–12,000 but that was soon surpassed on the way to a final total of £74,500. I think it was still cheap.

N.B. As a footnote to this piece, the coffin plate later featured on a new series – Antiques Roadshow Detectives – in which an escutcheon (a painted armorial banner) from Cromwell’s funeral, arrived at Belton House for an episode of the Roadshow. It bore an inscription saying that it had been taken from Cromwell’s coffin by a schoolboy. This was later dispelled within the programme; although this is held to have happened, that particular escutcheon still survives at Westminster School and is part of their ‘folklore’. However, this one was proven to be of period and it is believed to be one of many that might have lined the procession route or hung at Somerset House where Cromwell’s effigy was laid in state.

Interestingly, the inscription is 18th century and almost identical to the inscription on another surviving escutcheon in the Museum of London. One was also sold at Sotheby’s in 2013, again bearing a similar inscription, suggesting that some enterprising cad in the 18th century acquired a few and annotated them all. In any case, this one made £4,000, despite being in very poor condition.

Black and White

I often moan about auction houses that don’t publish estimates or, alternatively, post ridiculously low values in their catalogues. I appreciate that there might be some defence for this but I’m sure that the ‘come get me estimate’ is generally applied because it entices buyers into the room in the hope that’s there’s a bargain to be had; then again it can simply be sheer laziness and lack of knowledge (I’m sure that won’t make me any friends!). Yet, from my own experience of buying at auction, something that I do on an almost weekly basis, I would be the first to admit that I rarely know what I’m going to pay until the bidding is in full swing. In reality, the auctioneer’s estimate serves merely as an indicator of what it could be sold for, if no one else is interested. Of course, that’s what all bidders hope: that no one else will bid against them, whereas the auctioneer hopes for both maximum commission and the vendor’s satisfaction, and readily accepts a pat on the back if the estimate is surpassed, taking it to mean that they did a really good job – which they often do. Conversely, and for whatever reason, the estimate can be too high and the item can remain unsold. The problem is, estimating art is not a science, and as both a valuer and a buyer it has become a bit of a personal conundrum.

Unfortunately, things just aren’t black and white, and as I keenly pointed out in last year’s Almanac, an area which continues to defy prediction is that of Chinese porcelain, particularly blue and white. Bidders at Taylor’s Auctioneers of Montrose were recently treated to a not altogether uncommon spectacle when a lot comprising two Chinese vessels, one an unassuming ginger jar decorated with prunus, and another more interesting-looking candidate in the form of a moon flask, surpassed their £30–40 estimate to make £200,000! What value would I have put on it? Well, certainly more than £20–30 but nowhere near £200,000!

Holy Backfire!

Wikipedia lists no fewer than 356 ‘Holy’ Batman exclamations used by the superhero or his sidekick Robin in the 1960s series. I’m not sure how comprehensive or accurate this list is but a few of my favourites are ‘Holy hole in a donut’, ‘Holy uncanny photographic mental processes’ and ‘Holy interplanetary yardstick’.

I can sense you wondering where my Batman claim to fame is coming from, and yes, I do have one. It happened some years ago when I was filming an Antiques Roadshow at the Gaydon Motor Museum in Warwickshire. One of the cars on loan to the collection just happened to be a Batmobile. Although at the time I was dressed more like Batman’s arch enemy the Joker in an orange tartan suit, the curator very kindly let me sit behind the wheel of this famous car to pose for a photograph.

There are many myths and stories surrounding the Batmobiles constructed for the series but essentially four were made. #1 was the car used for filming and was based upon an incredible-looking concept car called the Lincoln Futura. Built in 1955 by Ford at a cost of $250,000, it was acquired by George Barris of Barris Kustom City, the legendary television and film car constructor, for just $1 in the 1960s. So the story goes, when approached by 20th Century Fox to produce a car for the new Batman series, he had only three weeks to do so and used the Futura as the basis to pull off his iconic automotive coup.

Given the success of the series it became patently obvious that they needed more cars to tour the States on promotional runs. Three moulds were taken from the original #1 and based on extended Ford Galaxie chassis. They all had their differences but the #2, #3 and #4 are all well documented. There appears to be some evidence that one of the other cars may have been used in filming but it’s generally assumed that they were not used on set. It was one of these three contemporary replicas that I had the pleasure of sitting in, although I can’t remember which one!

The original #1 was sold by Barris in 2013 for £2.4 million. However, it was with some interest that I noticed another Batmobile that had recently come up for sale. Altogether less futuristic and far more rounded, it had been built by a fan using a 1955 Oldsmobile, and aimed to replicate the look of the vehicle seen in the comic books of the 1940s and ’50s. The car, finished in 1963, had been forgotten but came to the market fully restored. It realised £90,000 when offered by Heritage Auctions.

Baltic Beauty

I’m often asked how you tell real amber from the various fake plastic and man-made resin examples. There are several tests you can do but first it’s probably worth explaining what amber actually is. It is often mistakenly called ‘sap’ but amber is in fact derived from the resin that forms below the bark of a tree, rather than the sap which flows through the heartwood. Resin is the substance of the natural self-repairing process that protects a damaged tree when, for example, it loses a branch in a storm. The resin contains various chemicals such as succinic acid (which has various applications) and terpenes, which are particularly prevalent in pine resin. For a few years I lived in an area of southern France known as Les Landes, where thousands of acres of previously sandy and swampy land were re-adapted in Napoleon’s era as large pine forests, expressly to extract resin and turpentine on a large scale. As most people know, it has a very characteristic strong smell and that’s why pine forests can be quite pungent. The amber, which gets locked in geological strata, is formed by the process of the terpenes breaking down and leaving the resin. This can take millions of years. Immature amber, in which the process is incomplete, is called copal. Copal tends to behave much like its man-made look-a-likes when subjected to the same tests.

Such tests include tasting (make sure you clean your test sample first before licking!). The taste is subtle, more of a sensation than a strong reaction, as opposed to the distinctly chemical taste of man-made materials. Amber also floats in salt water – that’s why it’s commonly found on beaches, particularly in the Baltic, where pieces are liberated from their undersea strata during storms. To see if a sample floats, mix one part salt to two parts water and test accordingly. Copal sinks.

Amber doesn’t melt, unlike polymer and plastic imitations, which when burnt also give off horrible acrid fumes. Amber burns with a pleasant pine-like smell; that’s why it was used as incense. However, this is an invasive way to test an object. Rubbing real amber vigorously on wool will also give it a static charge so that it will attract small pieces of paper or hair towards it (a test that I’ve found is not always that reliable!).

Amber prices continue to be buoyant (if you’ll excuse the pun) and I was interested to see that a large piece weighing a hefty 47oz (1,346g) had been sold by the Berlin auctioneers Kloss. The huge chunk was inscribed in ink by Alfred Lange and dated 1926. He later became dean of Freiberg University of Mining and Technology, hence the obvious interest in such a specimen. It had been found at Gross Moellen on the shore of the Baltic Sea. Amber is always popular in the Asian markets, as it traditionally has medicinal qualities in some cultures. This helped push it to a remarkable £25,600!

Rivet Rivet

I love riveted ceramics. The more metal rivets the merrier – and not only rivets: odd-looking lead repairs on handles and spouts, replacement tin handles on 18th-century Chinese tankards, all such idiosyncrasies of an object’s life can have their own field of interest among collectors. The downside is that unless you have a penchant for such things, your riveted ceramics will generally be worth a lot less than a perfect example – a benefit for the collector rather than the vendor. However, the mere act of riveting suggests that such items were valued beyond their monetary worth and that was almost certainly the case with a large Qianlong famille rose vase that was recently offered by Toovey’s Auctioneers in West Sussex. The neck of the vase had quite a few staples around the damaged rim – a pity for such a good-looking vase; this was probably why Toovey’s decided to give it a well-tempered estimate of £10,000–20,000. In the end it seemed to make little difference as it was knocked down to one of a bank of telephone bidders, apparently a client in Hong Kong, for a far more riveting £520,000.

Jamaica Rum