Stop............Hammer Time!
Good day to thee, bloggees and bloggettes, I have returned from battle in the great city and come out (fairly) victorious!
So on with the post, and to London on monday, where we were going to stay overnight for the auction on tuesday morning. We got the train at Solihull and got into London just before lunchtime. We checked into our very nice boutique-style hotel in South Kensington, dumped our bags and went for a wander round the area. Now for those of you that don't know London very well (shame on you!), just down the road from the Old Brompton Road, where the auction was being held, there is the Kings Road, and for those not familiar with the Kings Road.....well I have pity for you!
The Kings Road is one of the most famous roads in London. Its a good couple of miles long and its basically a very upmarket version of Oxford Street, without the ghastly discount retailers and people with sandwich boards advertising Golf Sales (seriously, name me one golf course within a 30 mile radius of London!!). It has some beautiful little boutiques and shops that sell weird and wonderful clothing and all kinds of stuff for the fashionable rich.....and us! Its the place to be seen if you are somebody, and as we are somebody, we just had to go there and mingle with the higher classes (well it would be rude not to!). We had lunch at The Big Easy, which is a large American-style restaraunt selling huge meals for the huge american. Suffice to say we were stuffed when we came out!
So to walk it off we went for a stroll down the other side of the Kings Road, and ended up going right to the far end of the street, where Kate Middleton works, however continuing the tradition my Aunt sticks to of not going into any shop where 'people like us wouldn't fit in' i.e Selfridges, Harrods, Harvey Nicks etc, we walked on past and went to M&S! On our way back we went into the viewing gallery at Christies to see my programmes and shirt on display, however soon realised when we went in that I had the whole room dedicated to all of my lots! It was amazing to see an entire room encircled with all 11,000 of my programmes, still in the boxes, mind you (should have charged them for that, damn!) Anyway, after seeing the viewing for that auction, we went to another part of the building to have a look at an art exhibition that was being auctioned off the day after, which was fascinating to see, and it was proper modern art, non of this crap about half a cow in a glass box, or an unmade bed!
In the evening we just had a small meal in the hotel (still stuffed!) and called it an early night, as we had a fairly early start the next day with the auction starting at 10.30.
So to the auction, and we checked out of the hotel room, leaving our bags to collect later, and got to the auction for just after 10am as we wanted to get a seat right at the back to reduce the risk of sneezing and buying something for £1m! So we settled down and watched as about 60 people filled the room we were in. The auctioneer took his place at the stand, the phone lines and internet connections were ready and willing to take the first bids, and everyone had found a seat....
.....we were ready to begin (good luck everybody!)
So on with the post, and to London on monday, where we were going to stay overnight for the auction on tuesday morning. We got the train at Solihull and got into London just before lunchtime. We checked into our very nice boutique-style hotel in South Kensington, dumped our bags and went for a wander round the area. Now for those of you that don't know London very well (shame on you!), just down the road from the Old Brompton Road, where the auction was being held, there is the Kings Road, and for those not familiar with the Kings Road.....well I have pity for you!
The Kings Road is one of the most famous roads in London. Its a good couple of miles long and its basically a very upmarket version of Oxford Street, without the ghastly discount retailers and people with sandwich boards advertising Golf Sales (seriously, name me one golf course within a 30 mile radius of London!!). It has some beautiful little boutiques and shops that sell weird and wonderful clothing and all kinds of stuff for the fashionable rich.....and us! Its the place to be seen if you are somebody, and as we are somebody, we just had to go there and mingle with the higher classes (well it would be rude not to!). We had lunch at The Big Easy, which is a large American-style restaraunt selling huge meals for the huge american. Suffice to say we were stuffed when we came out!
So to walk it off we went for a stroll down the other side of the Kings Road, and ended up going right to the far end of the street, where Kate Middleton works, however continuing the tradition my Aunt sticks to of not going into any shop where 'people like us wouldn't fit in' i.e Selfridges, Harrods, Harvey Nicks etc, we walked on past and went to M&S! On our way back we went into the viewing gallery at Christies to see my programmes and shirt on display, however soon realised when we went in that I had the whole room dedicated to all of my lots! It was amazing to see an entire room encircled with all 11,000 of my programmes, still in the boxes, mind you (should have charged them for that, damn!) Anyway, after seeing the viewing for that auction, we went to another part of the building to have a look at an art exhibition that was being auctioned off the day after, which was fascinating to see, and it was proper modern art, non of this crap about half a cow in a glass box, or an unmade bed!
In the evening we just had a small meal in the hotel (still stuffed!) and called it an early night, as we had a fairly early start the next day with the auction starting at 10.30.
So to the auction, and we checked out of the hotel room, leaving our bags to collect later, and got to the auction for just after 10am as we wanted to get a seat right at the back to reduce the risk of sneezing and buying something for £1m! So we settled down and watched as about 60 people filled the room we were in. The auctioneer took his place at the stand, the phone lines and internet connections were ready and willing to take the first bids, and everyone had found a seat....
.....we were ready to begin (good luck everybody!)
Auctioneer: 'Ok first up is Lot number one, a 18ct Gold Presentation Pocket watch, made in 1927 for one of the founding members of the football league (value between £350-£550), who will start me at £250?........how about £200. No? Ok moving onto Lot 2......'
It was a lovely watch and no one bought it, this was not going well. Ok ok, not to panic the next 6 lots went for around the asking price so we were back to normal.
This is where it started to get silly. Lot number 8 was up next. A 1950 FA Cup Final Arsenal shirt worn by the great Joe Mercer, asking price up to £8,000. A fight broke out over this lot, the internet bidder and the bloke 2 rows in front of us were upping the offers by £500 a go. The whole room stopped for a while as they slugged it out.....
..it sold for £19,000!
The day before, the same auctioneers had sold an antique violin for over £1m, they must have thought their luck was in the second time in two days! We were thrilled, especially as it seemed everyone had too much money in the room!
Right, our first item, the football shirt, was fought over by 4 people, eventually going for £450, £200 over the original reserve price, everything was going well, although we had to wait an hour and a half for our next lot.
Now the thing is with auctions, not only are they a very random place with very random, rich people in them, but no one in their right mind knows exactly how any given auction will go (take for example the Arsenal shirt), so cue a massive rise and fall as every item was read out. Alot went for above the reserve, others didn't reach the reserve.
Half way through the auction, a bloke in a dark coat was standing next to mom, taking particular interest in the auction.....It was only blummin Statto! (for those who can't remember, the chap off Fantasy Football League from 90's land) Marvellous!
All in all, 6 of the 13 lots sold on Tuesday, making us a healthy profit (in respect of that fact that neither me or Mom had purchased any of the programmes!). The remainder of the collection is going back in a Sporting auction on 4th July, lets hope I'm granted 'independence' of my programmes then eh! (ok thats the only Independence Day joke i could think up in the split second I had!)
If ur a nosey sort, you can scroll down and make a note of the lot numbers, then go on the christies website from this page, have a look at the results, take 20% buyers premium off the price, together with 1.5% insurance, 15% commission, and £780 for illustration and publishing for all lots I sent to them, which is good as the July auction is essentially free of that as Christies haven't held up their end of the deal (great innit!), and see how much I will be getting in the next week or so from the lovely chaps down south.
Anyway I took the liberty of taking a couple of pics while I was there. Now, first up, remember that narrow alleyway I had to squeeze the van down a few months back? Remember how u didn't believe it was so small, well look again!
...Yep, its as narrow as that!
Now for a shot of a man thinking I fancy him and am taking a picture as a momento of seeing him across the street, when in fact, he's blocking the entrance to Christies!
'Hey sexy boy, GET THE HELL OUTA MY SHOT U PLEB!'
Anyway that was the highlight of my Easter, I'll blog the rest of it when I next get a chance, hopefully over the weekend. I shall, however leave you with an introduction to a new friend of mine, recently discovered on my myspace page. She's been travelling around alot recently and she hasn't got many friends so please be kind.
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