Category: Sale Reports

Amber: Liquid Gold

0641 - Amber Beads at Auction
A single row necklace of amber beads. Sold for £7,000

As documented in our previous blog posts on amber, the market for amber is undeniably incredibly buoyant.

Among the offering of amber beads in Toovey’s February auction was a single row necklace of nineteen large and thirty small vari-coloured oval and spherical butterscotch coloured opaque amber beads (gross weight approx 175.5g, total length approx 88cm). This necklace (illustrated right) sold under the gavel for £7,000. The prices for this fossil tree resin which starts out in a liquid form are about twice the current price for gold per gram for the right example.

The February auction included a number of other examples, a selection of which can be seen below.

Toovey’s jewellery auction on the 26th March 2014 includes another good selection of amber.

Green Light for Amber Beads at Auction!

Detail of Amber Beads sold at Tooveys
Detail of Amber Beads sold at Toovey's in January

Further to our blog post ‘Amber Beads in Fashion at Toovey’s‘ and Rupert Toovey’s article in the West Sussex Gazette ‘Prehistoric Treasure in Demand Today‘. We wanted to share some of the prices achieved for amber beads in our January auction on the 29th January. Highest price was £10,000 for a single row necklace of thirty-eight slightly graduated oval vari-coloured opaque and semi-translucent butterscotch coloured amber beads, total weight approx 255g, total length approx 110cm, length of smallest bead approx 2cm, length of largest bead approx 2.7cm.

More amber beads are consigned in our Specialist Sale of Jewellery on 26th February 2014. See lot numbers 640-664. If you would like your amber beads valued for possible inclusion into a forthcoming auction please contact our offices, pre-sale valuations are free of charge at our Spring Gardens salerooms.

Amber Beads in Fashion at Toovey’s

Detail of Amber Beads Sold Recently at Toovey's Auctions
Detail of Amber Beads Sold Recently at Toovey's Auctions

Amber is a fossil tree resin. It originates as a soft and sticky substance and, as such, sometimes includes animal and plant material or insects. Many people will remember amber as being the source of ‘Jurassic Park’ in Michael Crichton’s fictitious novel, with dinosaur DNA being extracted from the blood of a mosquito trapped in amber.

Since the neolithic period amber has been appreciated for its colour, beauty and supposed healing properties. It has always been seen as a status symbol since these prehistoric times. The transparent amber seen in the movie adaptation of Crichton’s novel is the image most people conjure into their mind when thinking of amber. Pieces containing insect inclusions were particularly prized among aesthetic Victorians. Historically, and up until quite recently, this type of amber was the most desirable.

A recent fashion change has lead to another type of amber realising astonishing prices. This amber is less translucent and almost milky in appearance. The ‘butterscotch’ coloured amber and variants of it were popular in the 1920s and have dipped in and out of fashion ever since. Today, this specific type has captured the eye of the emerging economies of China, India and the Middle East. With Toovey’s global internet marketing, these buyers are only a mouse click away. Over the last few months Toovey’s have had a good number of amber necklaces consigned to auction, many from a single private collector – a small selection is shown below. The highest price achieved to date was in Toovey’s end of year auction on the 31st December 2013. A single row necklace of forty-nine mottled yellow butterscotch coloured graduated amber beads, gross weight 278g, total length 136cm, achieved £11,000. Other examples can be seen by searching for ‘amber necklace’ in the archive on Toovey’s website. The price variations are largely attributable to the colour, number and size of the beads, as fashion reverts back to prehistoric times using amber as a symbol of status. Another group of amber bead necklaces will be offered in our specialist jewellery auction on the 29th January 2014.

Click on an image to enlarge.

The Fine Art of Smoking ~ Cigarette Cards at Toovey’s

A.A. Milne first alluded to ‘Smoking as a Fine Art’ in his 1920 essay of that title. He was referring to the pleasure of smoking a pipe and his view came from the perspective of a generation unaware of the health risks of smoking. Indeed, if you believed the advertising of Philip Morris in 1943, you would think smoking was actively good for you, as they claimed ‘tests showed three out of every four cases of smokers’ cough cleared on changing to Philip Morris’. Twenty-three years later, America banned cigarette advertisements on the television.

24 (of 50) Allen & Ginter extra large-size 'The American Indian' cigarette cards, blog.tooveys.com
24 (of 50) Allen & Ginter extra large-size 'The American Indian' cigarette cards, circa 1888, sold for £1900 at Toovey's

In 1875, almost a century prior to the television advertising ban, an American tobacco company, Allen & Ginter, started issuing cards to advertise their brand and to stiffen the somewhat flimsy cigarette packaging. The British firms of Wills and Players started issuing similar cards in 1887 and 1893 respectively, quickly followed by Ogdens in 1894. These advertising cards soon changed to pictorial images, which could be collected in sets of 25, 50 or even 100, and with this change generations of cartophilists, aka cigarette card collectors, were born. These cards were the hidden gems inside packets and were perhaps the ‘fine art of smoking’.

Sets of cigarette cards were intended to educate and entertain with pictorial fronts and descriptive backs. Some were collected, others played with by children in the street. As a fairly ephemeral item, a surprisingly high number survive in very good condition. It is fair to say that the majority of cigarette cards are common and are not particularly collected, more so now in the days of the internet, when supply can outweigh demand very quickly. The majority of collectors have these common sets already and may upgrade to particularly fine examples but otherwise can afford to be fussy, which reflects in the value of more common material. With this in mind, it should be noted that the majority of sets of cigarette cards are not worth consigning to auction individually and are often sold in collections with other sets.

25 (of 50) Allen & Ginter 'The World's Champions' cigarette cards, blog.tooveys.com
25 (of 50) Allen & Ginter 'The World's Champions' cigarette cards, sold for £600 at Toovey's
Set of 50 Franklyn Davey & Co 'Birds' cigarette cards, blog.tooveys.com
Set of 50 Franklyn Davey & Co 'Birds' cigarette cards, circa 1896, sold for £550 at Toovey's

There is still a great number of collectors of cigarette cards deriving pleasure and interest from the hobby. The web has created a global market and, like all of Toovey’s auctions, their specialist sales of Paper Collectables are marketed online via www.tooveys.com in addition to currently being marketed via four other major collectors’ websites around the globe. They are even translated into Chinese on a website servicing the antique and collectors’ market across mainland China, an opportunity that would not have been possible twenty years ago. While the internet has clearly shown the commonness of certain sets, it has also highlighted the rarity of others and it is these scarce cards that still attract major attention from traders and collectors alike when they are offered at auction. Cigarette cards continue to sell well at Toovey’s, one of the few auctioneers still holding specialist sales of cigarette cards. The auctions are dates in the diary for everyone interested in the hobby. “Because Toovey’s hold regular auctions, it is easier to keep an eye on the market and adjust estimates accordingly to maintain our excellent sale rate and provide appropriate valuations for our vendors,” says valuer Nicholas Toovey.

25 Taddy 'Royalty Series' cigarette cards, blog.tooveys.com
A set of 25 Taddy 'Royalty Series' cigarette cards, circa 1903, sold for £200 at Toovey's

Toovey’s sale of Paper Collectables on 5th November 2013 included a number of particularly rare cards, causing fireworks between the frenetic bidders, both in the room and online! Specialist dealers and collectors from around the country competed for some of the seldom-seen cards offered at the auction. The cigarette card section boasted an impressive 100% sold rate of all 107 lots in the cigarette card section.  The top hammer price of £1900 was achieved for 24 extra-large size Allen & Ginter cigarette cards from the set of 50 ‘The American Indian’, issued circa 1888. While albums of rare-type cards also achieved four figures, the next highest price for a small group was £600 for more Allen & Ginter cigarette cards, this time 25 from the set of 50 ‘The World’s Champions’, issued circa 1888. Some serious scuffing to the backs of a set of 50 Franklyn Davey & Co ‘Birds’, issued circa 1896, did not deter bidders for this extremely rare set and, although it would have been worth considerably more in better condition, it achieved £550. It was not just the early American cards that were hotly competed for; many cards issued by British manufacturers also attracted attention, such as a set of 25 Taddy ‘Royalty Series’ which sold for £200, factoring in the good condition of the set from one of the most collected British cigarette card manufacturers.

Toovey’s hold three specialist sales of Paper Collectables a year, all of which include a good selection of cigarette cards.

Impressive Bracket Clock sold for £7000 at Auction

An impressive early 20th Century English mahogany and chased gilt brass bracket clock with eight day twin fusee movement striking and chiming on eight bells and four gongs, went under the gavel at Toovey’s Specialist Sale of Clocks and Watches on the 8th November.  The bracket clock sold for £7000 to a couple in the room against strong competition from several telephone bidders.

The 87cm tall bracket clock had a brass arched dial with silvered circular ‘slow/fast’ indicator flanked by silvered ‘chime/silent’ and ‘Whittington/Westminster’ circular indicators, above a silvered chapter ring with gilt Arabic numerals framing an engraved foliate centre, all within a frame of pierced scroll fretwork.  The India inspired mahogany case had finely chased gilt brass mounts and was surmounted with a large dome flanked by four smaller dome finials.

This clock was featured in a full-page advertisement of an ‘English (London Made) Bracket Chiming Clock’ that appeared in the Grimshaw Baxter & J.J Elliott Ltd catalogue sometime after 1909. The advert suggested the clock was intended for the overseas market, with India the most likely destination. Today however, the purchasers in the room were underbid by specialists in China rather than India, either way it remains in the UK for a little while longer.