GAN News

26 January 2010

Britain’s smelliest antiques?

It’s quite common for eBay sellers to tell potential buyers that the lots they are offering come from “non-smoking households.” I suspect that this is largely because it makes them feel very high-minded and virtuous, although in fairness, the smell of stale tobacco is not one that everyone enjoys and in terms of popularity, I don’t think that new-mown grass has very much to worry about. I once bought a rare paperback book that needed to be “aired” in the shed for about three months before the stench of 80 x Embassy Regal King Size a day could be exorcised from its pages, so I would never deny that a nasty niff can be off-putting.
 
But these smoky problems seem insignificant compared to the whiff that a couple of antique desks have been pumping into a Scunthorpe auction room. The desks – one a clerk’s desk and one a roll top desk - were used by staff who worked for the Harold Bryant firm of fish merchants at one of Grimsby’s fish piers and after a century of being around – and one guesses sometimes under - the harvest of the sea, they have taken on board so much fish oil that they reek of the North Sea. The company went into liquidation last November but if the firm is dead, the smell lingers on.

"They are actually very striking to look at, real Dickens stuff, and if they came from the offices of a bank or a book-keeper, basically anywhere other than a fish dock, then you would be looking at them making several hundreds of pounds apiece," said auctioneer Paul Cooper of CJM Asset Management. "Even in the recent spell of sub-zero weather you got the niff in our warehouse at ten paces," said Mr Cooper, “and if you put them in a warm room and I think they would clear the place."

In the end the desks, estimated at £10 each, did better than expected. The roll top made £40 and the clerk’s desk £60.

Some dealers use diluted ammonia solution to clean smelly objects but Richard Barstow of Gallant Antiques and Restoration, an expert who has worked on pieces for major galleries around the world including the British Museum, said that raw onions could draw out the smell from wood.

"These pieces have obviously had fish oils soaking into the timber for a very, very long time, so they will whiff," he said. "I would be inclined to surface clean them, get the onions to work and leave the pieces to breathe. How long it would take is difficult to say."

Do you still wonder why IKEA is so popular?

Tuna Melt

A drop in the number of shipments of the gourmet’s favourite bluefin tuna from the coastal city of Oma drove Japanese buyers to new heights of fishy frenzy at the first auction of 2010 on the Tokyo Metropolitan central Wholesale market, commonly known as the Tsukiji market.

Unable to contain their passion for poissons, two sushi bar owners paid more than a $100,000 for a 128kg bluefin tuna caught off the coast of Japan.

A standard bluefin sells for about $20,000 on average, with the rare giants going for four or five times that amount.
 
Now if only the two buyers can lay their hands on the world’s most expensive tin of sweetcorn, biggest jar of mayonnaise and two slices of bread the size of king-size bedsheets, just think of the sandwich they could make…

Holy Cow

A cow named Missy became the most expensive cow in the world when she was auctioned for $1.2 million dollars in November 2009.
She is a three year old black and white Holstein from Canada. Her former  owner and breeder Bloyce Thompson of Eastside Holsteins stated that "She's the most valuable young cow in the world right now [and] is one of the top show cows in North America". She was also the Grand Champion of the 2009 Western Fall National Show.”

She was sold to a buyer from Denmark and will be used help improve the genetic makeup of the Holstein breed. At $1.2 million, don’t expect to see her at – or on – a barbecue anytime soon…

A Fool Such as I

A guitar pick, used by Elvis on his final tour in 1977, sold to a British collector for nearly £1,200 at Aldridge’s saleroom in Devizes in mid January. Crazy money. I get my Jim Dunlop 38mm picks for 50 pence a go…

Government Auction News Team

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