Since moving to Long Eaton we've been determined to try and go to a few auctions to see if we can pick up any bargains for the house - in particular looking for big mirrors, a bureau (you don't seem to be able to buy them new anymore) and any random crockery or glassware for the kitchen. And of course anything else which takes our fancy!
We finally got organised and found a local auction room which runs Victorian, Edwardian and General sales every fortnight and went along this week. There was a chance to view the items on Tuesday before the sale on Wednesday. With over 1100 lots, there was a huge amount to look through.
It was quite bizarre really and a strange mixture of items - pictures, furniture, crockery, glassware and much more...some period stuff and some modern (a huge TV and some nasty sofas for instance!). There was plenty we were interested in but knew it had to be pared down a bit and as the auctions are regular, there's a lot of stuff which will come round again. So unfortunately, the Gilbert gramophone and shield with swords and blunderbusses had to be dropped!!!
On the day, we were reasonably successful, although in the smaller items section found ourselves up against the clearly shop buyers - a couple of men bidding for all the Derby Crown pieces, one woman bidding against us for all the silver plated tea sets, and too many people bidding for the TG Green Cornish spice pots. Lovely, but too expensive in the end. Bidding was great - a bit of an adrenalin rush. I can see that going regularly might get a bit dangerous. It's all very well setting yourselves limits, but when the bidding's only going up by £2 at a time, it doesn't seem like much more until you realise you've just spent £20 over what you wanted to!! So what did we end up with?
Lovely blanket box. There were several up for sale, this one being the first which came up after we arrived and I bidded (bade?) successfully for it! £20. Nice.
Silver plated tea and coffee pots, sugar bowl, creamer and two other random silver plated items. Cost us £45 - a bit expensive really but we were determined to out bid the woman who beat us to the set we really wanted!!
£15 for masses of Moschendorf blue and white crockery. Leigh was umming and ahhing about whether to bid for it and was charmed into it by the auctioneer's patter of - oh look at that. You get lots of it - and we were the only bidders at £15. Not too bad.
Didn't manage to get a bureau (despite some great ones there) or mirrors. Shame. Means we'll just have to drag ourselves back there!
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