Collection of old railway posters set to sell for £1million at UK auction

During the golden age of the steam train they advertised journeys to Paignton, Southport and Cornwall. Now the destination is memory lane. Part of a vast collection, these posters were saved by railway enthusiast and employee Malcolm Guest, who died last year aged 66. His terrace house was 'filled to the gunwales' with his beloved collection, now thought to be worth almost £1 million. He rescued thousands of items such as classic promotional posters and station signs unwanted after British Rail nationalised the regional railways. His terraced house in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire, was ‘filled to the gunnels’ with his beloved collection, which he started while he worked for BR in the 1960s. He continued with his hobby up until he died last year aged 66. Mr Guest's widow and two grown-up children had no idea how much his collection was worth and were ‘pleasantly surprised’ by the valuation. The collection is so huge it is being sold over three separate auctions at Morphets of Harrogate, North Yorkshire. Malcom Guest It has been described by railway historian and author Dr Richard Furness as one of the most important of its kind. He said while Malcolm Guest was saving his posters, tens of thousands of others were burnt. Dr Furness said: ‘Malcolm Guest worked for British Rail at Paddington Station in the early Sixties. ‘In the offices and archives was all this memorabilia and posters that were no longer wanted by British Rail and were going to be destroyed. ‘What Malcolm Guest did was ask if he could have it and squirreled it away to make probably the best private collection of railway memorabilia ever seen. ‘He took away one or two mint copies of the best posters that nowadays collectors would die to get their hands on. ‘In the golden age of steam the railway companies commissioned popular artists of the day to produce paintings from which the posters were made. ‘It was a world away from the Jimmy Savile “Age Of The Train” poster campaign of the 1970s which was just naff. ‘He was also allowed to take home the original artwork including the iconic “Speed To The West” poster painting. ‘Some 30,000 of these posters just got burnt at Waterloo station in the 1960s, they would be worth about £20million today. ‘I would estimate the collection of posters are worth about £600,000, the original artwork about £250,000 and the railway ephemera about £50,000.’ Stunned auctioneers were overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the collection, which was immaculately filed on shelves and in cabinets. It included more than 2,500 rare posters advertising railway trips to British holiday resorts such as Torquay and St Ives in the 1920s and 1930s and the Flying Scotsman. They are said to be worth a total of £600,000. Original artwork for the promotional material was also discovered. They included 84 drawings by famous cartoonist William Heath Robinson that were commissioned by Great Western Railways in 1935 and are now worth £90,000. An oil on canvass painting of two locomotives by famed English artist David Shepherd has a pre-sale estimate of £10,000. The first auction has already taken place and netted £411,392, with 580 of the 2,500 posters selling for around £300,000. One poster was a ‘jovial’ view of Southport Lido and was produced for the London, Midland and Scottish railway in 1925. It sold for £6,200. Elizabeth Pepper-Darling, of Morphets, said: ‘The posters date from 1905 to the 1970s and are in excellent condition. ‘Most of them were just gathering dust and cluttering up the place when British Rail came into being. ‘Malcolm Guest worked in the publicity department at Paddington and his family have said he was given most of them, but some he acquired for a very small amount of money. The collection is so huge it is being sold over three separate UK auctions at Morphets of Harrogate, North Yorkshire Source: The Daily Mail

UK Auctioneers

Doctor Who props and costumes fo sale at UK auction

An Imperial Dalek

A selection of props and costumes from BBC One's Doctor Who are to go under the hammer in London later this month. Fans can snap up their own Cyberman, Dalek or Sea Devil at the auction, as well as costumes worn by the 10th Doctor himself, David Tennant. Other highlights of the sale include Kylie Minogue's waitress costume she wore in a 2007 Christmas special, which is expected to fetch up to £3,000. The auction will take place at Bonhams on 24 February. From the same Christmas special, Tennant's two-piece Paul Smith dinner suit is also up for grabs valued at around £3,000. A jacket worn by Billie Piper's character Rose Tyler is expected to raise up to £700 while a pair of her pyjamas and dressing gown could fetch £250. Two Imperial Daleks costumes from Sylvester McCoy's tenure as the Doctor in 1988 are also in the sale. One, altered for exhibition purposes, is hoped to fetch £3,500, while the other could raise up to £7,000. There is also a selection of vehicles in the auction - including Captain Jack's Torchwood Range Rover and a black cab from The Runaway Bride episode starring Catherine Tate, aired in 2006. Source: www.news.bbc.co.uk

The ‘ultimate Porsche 911′ sells for £220,000 at UK Auction

The 'ultimate Porsche 911'

The 1973 Carrera RS 2.7, regarded by many as the best-ever 911, sold for £220,000  by H&H at the Pavilion Gardens in Buxton, Derbyshire. Originally conceived as a Group 4 homologation special, the Carrera RS 2.7 is regarded by many as the ultimate Porsche 911. Of the 1,580 cars made, just 200 were built to Lightweight (M471 Sport) specification, with a mere 17 of those featuring right-hand drive. This particular example enjoyed considerable rallying success in its heyday. Only 17 examples feature right-hand drive Later reconfigured as a road car, this 911 was restored by Autofarm before being acquired by its current private owner in 1989. Fettled by Neil Bainbridge and Bob Watson since then, this iconic Porsche is finished in its factory correct hue of Tangerine.

UK Auctioneers

Capes Dunn Catalogue February 23rd 2010

JFK ‘love letters’ to young Swedish woman up for auction

Compared with modern political scandals, the recently unveiled love letters and telegrams reportedly written by John F. Kennedy to a young Swedish woman in the 1950s may seem antiquated and almost chaste. In fact, there is not one foot-tapping or cigar-puffing folly to be found. But the Chicago-area auction house that put the correspondence up for sale on its Web site Monday is hoping that bidders will be drawn more by the collection's historic significance than the promise of juicy details. "They are remarkable," said president of University Archives John Reznikoff. "(The letters) show the sensitive and human side, they show the fallibility of the person who was going to lead the Western world, avert the Cuban missile crisis and stand at the Berlin Wall." The collection includes 11 handwritten letters and three telegrams reportedly sent from Kennedy to the flaxen-haired Gunilla von Post while he was a U.S. senator. "I thought I might get a boat and sail around the Mediterranean for two weeks — with you as crew," read one letter dated June 28, 1954. "What do you think?" Legendary Auctions in Lansing started the bidding Monday at $25,000.The auction follows a book by von Post in 1997 that detailed her long-distance affair with Kennedy, whom she said she met on the French Riviera in August 1953, just a few weeks before he married Jacqueline Bouvier. Although von Post referenced the letters in her book, they have never been revealed in their entirety, according to Legendary Auctions President Doug Allen, who began working with von Post earlier this year. A later letter, written in red ink, foreshadows the end of the relationship, which von Post said dissolved around 1956. It reads, "I just got word today — that my wife & sister are coming here. It will all be complicated the way I feel now — my Swedish flicka … All love, Jack." Copyright © 2010, Chicago Tribune

Frederick Paul Gell collection for sale at UK auction

Frederick Paul Gell

Frederick Paul Gell was born in Manchester on the 16^th February 1918.  His father, Charles, was a career military officer serving with the Mechanical Engineers and his mother being Evelyn Gell (nee Dewhurst).  The family was of Manx origins with grand-parents and earlier generations resident in the Isle of Man. At the age of 16, he was mixing with artists like Lowry but any ideas of an artistic profession were placed firmly on the back burner whilst he worked as a traffic controller in the Royal Air Force.  Much to the disapproval of his family he enrolled as a mature student at the Academy of Bath and graduated in 1951.  In the ‘50s, he worked as part of a design team for Cunard being responsible for the interiors of cruise liners that became so popular after the Second World War.  Gell then immediately put his knowledge to use and became Assistant Art Director for the Midlands Area of the Arts Council.  After three years he moved to London and started painting in oils and acrylics and it was at this point in his life that interior design first prevailed.  He was entirely self taught but soon found himself on the register for the Council of Interior Design winning many contracts for ship interiors, and work for companies such as Heals.  A few commissions from his portfolio include a penthouse for Browns of Chester, The British Pavilions in Johannesburg and the British Stand at the International Fair in Stockholm which was commented on by the King of Sweden ‘...could not possibly have been designed by an Englishman’. As an artist Gell originally worked in oils and acrylics painting many figurative subjects as well as landscapes.  In 1978 he moved from London to Plymouth and purchased Mount Stone House in the Stonehouse district of Plymouth.  The house, a former winter residence of the Edgcumbe family, apart from spectacular views over Plymouth Sound and the mouth of the Tamar, had a sheltered walled garden which fed his lifelong love of flowers.  The garden, was extremely varied divided into five areas, a vegetable and herb garden, a fruit garden, a formal garden and a bordered garden, alongside a wild garden. At this point, after much experimenting he found that oils and acrylics were too rigid to portray the continuous movement and life force of his flowers, so he turned to watercolour.  Gell appreciated its qualities which enabled him to make shapes without abrupt edges or hard lines, allowing his subject also to melt into the space surrounding it.  An unusual attribute of Gell’s work was his directness of ideas onto paper, never creating preliminary drawings or working with any lines whatsoever.  This was to ensure fluidity and, when adopting his usual position of standing with the paper at table height, both his slick medium and dynamic style allowed his brush harmoniously to dance across the paper.  He was opposed to applying washes and working over them, he used to set down the essential shapes, a method highly unusual in orthodox European watercolour techniques and closer to the style of Chinese and Japanese artists’ work.  Gell’s work fused together the symbolic naturalistic and realist aspects attempting to suggest the infinite varieties of colours and forms found in wild life.  Gell’s work was unusually large in scale often measuring 1m each way and the result was a very imposing image, coupled with his use of bright colours, his art was a sure fire way to brighten the mood in any room. In 1983 he wrote the book ‘Flowers from a Painter’s Garden’ – the Watercolours of Paul Gell. The commentaries of each of the 68 illustrations were by the artist, alongside botanical notes by Ronald King, Secretary of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew  (1959 – 1976),  the world’s foremost botanical research institution from 1959 to 1976.  The popularity of this book resulted in associated exhibitions, in London, Bath and New York with the Francis Kyle Gallery of London which were  huge successes.  Images produced as cards and prints resulted in extraordinary sales of over 2 million copies, mainly through Kew. The artist moved to Ramsay, Isle of Man for the last years of his life, where he died on the 2^nd June 1996 aged 78 years. His work can be found on the walls of homes and institutions across the globe and his book ‘Flowers form a Painter’s Garden’ is a must for any keen botanical follower with an appreciation for art. Lawrence Hendra & Graham Bazley A selection of Frederick Gell's Paintings is beign auctioned at W H Lane on 25th February 2010 Click here to view the catalogue

H.R.H Princess Margaret visiting Paul Gell’s Exhibition at Bath Contemporary Art Fair 1981

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

Piccadilly Gallery , London 1955

Shevioick Gallery, Cornwall 1975

‘Flowers in Watercolour’ 17th June – 12th July 1980

Francis Kyle Gallery, London

‘Four Seasons of Flowers in Watercolour’,  22nd – 25th May 1981

Bath Contemporary Arts Fair (Francis Kyle Gallery)

‘Four Seasons of Flowers in Watercolour’, 1st June – 26th June 1981

London, Francis Kyle Gallery

‘Watercolours’, 17th May – 17th June 1983

London, Francis Kyle Gallery

First New York Exhibition, 22nd September – 6th October 1983

Francis Kyle Gallery

‘Watercolours of English Flowers & Chinese Gardens’, 21nd May – 27th June 1985

London, Francis Kyle Gallery

‘In the Garden’, 6th July – 31st August 1985

Plymouth City Museum & Art Gallery

Albermarle Gallery, 1988

London

Flower Paintings, 4th June – 16th July 1990

London, Kew Gardens Gallery

New UK Auction opens in Northwich, Cheshire

The New Northwich Auction - formery The Red Lion

Northwich Auctions Ltd was formerly The Red Lion public house, a large Victorian Building adjacent to the Bridgewater Canal in the village of Barnton. Northwich Auction, Antiques and Collectables Centre has been set up by Ral Pritchard and Peter Critchley to offer everyone with an interest in our past and present, a new, friendly and exciting centre to visit freely and regularly. The auctions will feature about 500 lots with prices ranging from a few pounds up to many hundreds. We will sell anything that there is a legal demand for, including antique, modern and office furniture, electrical goods, garden items, antique, collectable and household ceramics, glass, militaria, coins, jewellery, watches, musical instruments and a host of other items. The auctions will be held fortnightly on a Wednesday at 10.00am and will last for approximately four hours. We offer a competitively priced delivery service for any item bought in our auction or at the centre.  A fully illustrated catalogue will be published online every Friday before each Wednesday auction. Bids may be submitted by email on the bidding form. Please note that we have no intention of moving to live internet bidding. The Antiques and Collectables Centre will feature 25 units and some 30 display cabinets available to rent, with a wide mix of items for sale from a variety of dealers. The prices will be suited to all budgets however large or small, and we are sure that there is something here for everyone, although we will not sell new items. We anticipate the Antique Centre will open in mid February, watch this site for latest news! The Centre will be open every day except Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Years Day. There is a lovely in house tea room offering a wide range of refreshing drinks and snacks which will be open the same hours as the Antiques & Collectables Centre. A free car park is available to all patrons, and is located to the front of the auction house. Click to see the catalogue for the sale on 17th February 2010

World’s First Postal order sells at UK Auction for £4,485.00

London, Feb 11 : The world's first postal order, purchased for just one shilling 129 years ago, has been sold for 4,485pounds at an auction. The payment, which bears the serial number 000001, was the first to be produced by the Post Office in Lombard Street, London, in 1881. This was a very unique item and as such went for a lot more than predicted. There were lots of bids from enthusiasts. Its been in the same family for over 130 years so the opportunity to own something as rare as this doesnt come up very often. Collectors were always going to have to dig into their pockets to own this and clearly they did, the Telegraph quoted auctioneer Richard Beale, of Warwick and Warwick Auctioneers, as saying. Only five other 1881 postal orders having the same 000001 number are known to have survived. Victorians used the postal order to safely send money through the post. The first postal order was bought by Arthur Bull on January 1, 1881. It was signed by a clerk named A.G. Emery but Arthur never cashed it, thinking it would become a collector's item one day. He kept it in a leather case and locked it in his family's safe before his son, also named Arthur Bull, inherited it. After Arthur Bull juniors death in 1953 the postal order passed to his son Brian Galpin, who kept it safe in his home in Surrey. And when Galpin died at 72 in 2005, the postal order passed to his widow Audrey, 75, who agreed to auction it. The Postal Order is a direct descendent of the money order which was introduced by a private company in 1792. During World War One and World War Two, British Postal Orders were temporarily used as money to save paper and labour. Postal Orders can be bought and redeemed at post offices in Britain, even though a crossed Postal Order must be paid into a bank account.