WILL THERE BE SENSATIONAL £1M PLUS ATTIC FINDS AS NATIONAL CLEANING WEEK ARRIVES ON March 26 -31?
ATTICS FINDS MAKE SMALL FORTUNES AT AUCTION – BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU THROW AWAY
We’ve all heard about attic find stories, the forgotten painting behind grandma’s loft ending up on the BBC Antique Road Show and then sold at auction for a fortune. As National Cleaning Week arrives on March 26-31 it could just be your time to become the next millionaire.
By using Barnebys appraisal service to value your finds you can easily make sure you don´t throw away the wrong things during National Cleaning Week March 26-31 – or indeed at any time of the year.
Two recent attic finds include the landscape above by an unknown artist, sold in February in Sweden for £48,000 at an online sale with a very low estimate. And then there is the ‘Lost Caravaggio’ ‘Judith & Holofernes’, found in a Toulouse farmhouse attic in 2014 that will be sold in June in Toulouse by Marc Labarbe Auctions for an estimated £100 million.
Many people are simply not aware of what they have in their homes says Barnebys, the world’s leading search aggregator for auctions which now includes the art and collectables valuation service ValueMyStuff, can easily assist in establishing values for art and collectables.
With National Cleaning Week arriving in time for a Spring Cleaning we could well see some new discoveries coming out of the nation’s attics and cellars. Barnebys offers some insight into fairly ordinary objects that have amazed their owners when they came to auction.
Scientific Instruments: Telescopes, cameras, microscopes, binoculars, globes of the world.
Prices continue climbing for these wonderful old cameras, especially for Leicas and Rolleiflexes. The German-made Leica has long been considered the crème-de-la-camera. The company has been making photographic equipment since 1925 and is regarded by most collectors as the best bet for a good return on investment. With Leica you're buying photographic history.
A very rare Leica Luxus II- £472,487 at Bonhams
Wristwatches are another area where prices have gone through the roof. Recently a Rolex Speedmaster watch found in a box in the attic by the son of the owner, sold at Bukowskis in Helsinki for a world record price of £210,000. In 1966 it cost just £55.00.
Rolex Speedmaster £210,000. In 1966 it cost just £55.00
Family members cleaning up the home of a deceased relative, found a box of items he had bought at flea market and back yards sales during his life. The box contained everything from porcelain to toys and watches. Among the various pocket watches they found was a wonderful Audemars Worldtime from 1943. It is currently being offered for sale by Swedish auction house Göteborgs Auktionsverks for £40,000.
Audemars Worldtime from 1943
Made in London in 1776 these twin globes are worth £25,000
Hanging on walls on many homes there are prints of great masterpieces as well as more modern works by print makers that will astonish you with their current value.
Prints by Edward Bawden, John and Paul Nash and Eric Ravilious as well as prints by the art masters Picasso, Rembrandt, Henry Moore are all climbing in value.
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) La Minotauromachie 2013 Christie’s NEW YORK USD $2,045,000 World auction record for the subject
Buddhist deity cleared from a house to a fleamarket sells for $2.1m at auction
Attic find: Sold in February in Sweden for £48,000 at an online sale, the picture by an unknown artist.
Below are some items which amazed their owners when they reached the market in the last few years, items which had either been hiding in plain sight on bookshelves and mantelpieces or discovered in closets and attics.
There are everyday items – books, prints, pottery and old technology cameras, wrist watches, microscopes, binoculars, globes – that are fetching huge prices at auction today, prices that far exceed their original modest purchase price of just a few pounds according to Barnebys, the leading art search engine that tracks art
Cleared from a home and sold cheaply at a flea market this bronze statue of a Buddhist deity was recently auctioned in New York for more than $2 million The seller had bought the figure of the deity Cintamanicakra Avalokiteshvara about 20 years ago at a garage flea market for around $100, according to Sotheby's. The buyer then took the sculpture to a TV show where it was determined that it was an ancient Chinese character. At the auction Sotheby's had expected a price of up to $80 000, but after a seven-minute bidding contest, the hammer fell at $ 2.1 million. A case of house clearance owner not valuing your stuff before selling it!
Pontus Silfverstolpe, joint founder of Barnebys, says: “The real gems of the book world to look out for include: Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights, Graham Greene, Brighton Rock, Dashiell Hammett, Maltese Falcon, £50,000; Ian Fleming, Casino Royale £20,000; Fly Fishing by JR Hartley; Beatrix Potter, Peter Rabbit £40,000; James Joyce Ulysses £150,000; JK Rowling book Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone sold for £10.99 in 1997. Last year the same book fetched a wizard £27,370 at Bloomsbury Auctions in London. But there are hundreds of others. Do get a qualified book dealer or auction house expert in to value your books before you think of just dumping them.”
He adds: “There are still many wonderful finds out there that should send you to clean the attic or the cellar or to look once more at the mantelpiece or the display case. You could be in for the surprise of your life at car boot sales and junk shops. But you need to know what to look for. There are items that cost very little originally and so were widely sold which today are worth a small fortune.”
“Even if the BBC Antiques Road show has made generations of British TV-viewers aware of the value of antiques and it is more popular than ever many people are simply not aware of what they have in their homes or what they could find in car boot sales and junk shops.”
Barnebys hosts 2,000 auction houses on their site and offer some one million objects for sale each day, directing art collectors to the appropriate auction house. Barnebys is in a privileged position to monitor what is happening out there in the art and collectables market.
Dashiell Hammett, Maltese Falcon, sold for £50,000
Books are so often overlooked or disregarded that people just bundle them up and take them to charity shops or simply dump them. If they had any idea of what is on their shelves they would think again.
JK Rowling, Harry Potter & the Philosopher’s Stone, £27,370
Ian Fleming, Casino Royale, First Edition £20,000
The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter, £40,000
The exact same thing applies to Pottery and Ceramics, which are so often overlooked as they are hiding in plain sight, just part of the furniture in your own home, your parents’ or grandparents’ home, or stacked up at car-boot sales. Some of the names to look out for are: Lucie Rie; Moorcroft; Clarice Cliff; and Beswick.
The huge talent of Clarice Cliff, the potter, was first spotted in 1916 when she joined Arthur J. Wilkinson, a Burslem maker of standard transfer-printed earthenwares.
She trained at art school and was eventually given her own studio and a team of painters to work with her on more experimental wares.
The Staffordshire born and bred designer Clarice Cliff made her name with the brightly-coloured range of Art Deco pottery she designed in the 1920s. Her work was widely admired and so widely collected. Items turn up regularly.
Clarice Cliff jar sold for £3,400
Lucie Rie, a legend in the world of modern ceramics, began exhibiting her work in the late 1930s. In 1938 in Vienna she faced growing anti-Semitism, so she moved to England settling in London and established a studio in Albion Mews near Paddington. During the war years to make ends meet she began designing and making ceramic buttons for Bimini, as well as jewellery. When the war ended she develop a range of functional table and kitchenware which is now commanding high prices.
Launched in 1894 at Longton, Stoke-on-Trent by James Wright Beswick and sons John and Gilbert, the Beswick Pottery made its name producing affordable tablewares and ornaments. The company produced many ceramic animals but also charming tableware which is illustrated by this tableware of a cabbage leaf with tomatoes which sold for more than £6,000.
Beswick tableware – sold for £6,372
Beswick cow
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As the world's leading auction search service (or aggregator), Barnebys features, at any given time, over a half million items for sale through about 1,600 auction houses worldwide. Barnebys is fast closing in on the 1.5 million visitors a month mark. The firm employees people in Sweden, the UK, France, Germany, Spain, China and the US.
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