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BIDS AND PIECES
That’s rather Dinky
Dinky collectors have long prized the pre-war delivery vans that bear the names of famous and not-so-famous firms emblazoned on their sides (if ‘emblazoned’ is the right word for vans that are only a few inches long), but a recent surge of interest has seen prices hit heights that they haven’t attained in almost 15 years. Back in 1994, Christie’s sold a Bentall’s delivery van for the then-extraordinary price of £11,000. That price was comprehensively topped by the example of the No.22d van that auctioneers Vectis of Stockton-on-Tees sold in March. The ‘W. E. Boyce of Archway and Highgate’ delivery van was thought by the auctioneers to be the only one ever made. The buyer must have thought so too because he (and I think we can be reasonably sure it was a he) forked out £17,000 to get it, a price that is believed to be a new world record. Don’t you just wish your mum hadn’t taken your old toys to the charity shop?
Pips, get ready to squeak
You’ve got to hand it to Christie’s and Sotheby’s… especially when you come to pay your bill. Then you’ve really got to hand it to them, because, never slow in squeezing the buyers, both have just raised their buyer’s premium thresholds. Well, I suppose it is fair to say that Sotheby’s raised theirs first and Christie’s ‘adjusted’ theirs in line a couple of weeks later, but the result is much the same: more money for them, and, if you are a buyer, less for you.
Previously, punters at both auction houses had paid 25% on the first £10,000, followed by 20% up to £25,000 and then 12% above that. However, the new rates mean that buyers at both establishments will now pay 25% on the first £25,000, followed by 20% up to £500,000 and then 12% after that.
Obviously, the collusion and price-fixing (on the seller’s commission, as I recall) that both firms were found guilty of a few years ago does not apply now. Sotheby’s raised their rate first and a few days later Christie’s followed suit: nothing fishy about that at all.
Sotheby’s have been doing very well recently and making significant gains on Christie’s market share, but what makes the change to their buyer’s premium almost charming is the ringing phrase used by chief executive Bill Ruprecht when it was announced. He said that the increase would “enhance our revenue stream and strengthen our profit margin” (we want more of your money and nobody can stop us). “Enhance our revenue stream and strengthen our profit margin”, eh? Makes a change from “Stand and deliver!” I suppose…
Lines Written on the Sale of Some of William McGonagall’s Poems
It was in the month of May 2008
On a day which will for long be remembered as great
That buyers with wallets most plump and most full
Came to the fine salerooms of Messrs Lyon and Turnbull
In Edinburgh’s New Town, whose wide boulevards
Long have been the preserve of folk with Platinum credit cards
And also motor cars so expensive and glossy with shine
That they must be Insurance Group Seventy-nine.
They came for to gawp at a folder whose pages were full
Of poems written by the great William McGonagall,
Who many critics unkindly have decried
As being the very worst person who ever versified
Though some would claim with perhaps not a little glee
They are maybe not as bad as A Rain Charm for the Duchy
Which Ted Hughes wrote when he was made Poet Laureate
A ditty that with hindsight he probably wished he never did create.
McGonagall was a Victorian handloom weaver
Spoken to by God, so we must assume he was a believer.
The Almighty told him he must become a famous poet
Although, as the tavern wags like to say, he never did know it.
And neither did he show any talent for the form at all
Which would likely have stayed a lesser man but not McGonagall,
Who wrote many fine works and neither did this master cease
Til he’d written The Tay Bridge Disaster, surely his masterpiece.
Although that great poem was not in the folder going under the hammer
The 35 others that were excited considerable media clamour
There were stories in all the quality broadsheets and what is more
It even made it to The Today programme on Radio 4
Showing again the value of well-planned publicity
And making a change from tales of war and horrid duplicity
Such as we normally get at that hour on that station
Putting us off our cornflakes and making us fear very much for the nation.
The bidding in the saleroom at first started lowly
But it soon began to climb in fifties, but very slowly.
There were lots of rich people who were keen to contest for the lot
Most were present in the room themselves, though a number were not,
This latter group leaving bids on the book with the top amount set
Or else talking to porters on the telephone or using the Internet,
A modern contrivance that certainly can raise the price
But which slows the sale down, something many folk think is not so nice.
Eventually the lot was sold for £6,200 plus VAT and premium
A price that surely would have given many people a pain in the duodenum
Where ulcers can grow when you find you spent more than you ought
Which at auction is easy to do without even a second thought.
Yet when the final amount is divided by the figure of 34
The poems cost about £200 each or perhaps just a little more
Which is not so very much and in fact there were 35 altogether
But I couldn’t find a good rhyme for ‘five’, despite being quite clever.
Dictated by William McGonagall to Doris Stokes, passed by her to Mystic Meg, from her to Derren Brown and by him to Stuart Maclaren.