Model trains steam ahead of estimates at Halls

Halls Fine Art sale last week had a number of highlights, including a lion skin from Percy’s Café Bar in Whitchurch (not in the best of condition) which exceeded its £500-600 estimate to take a winning bid of £650 and an outstanding result for a Victorian silver gilt snuff box with an Edwardian example that made the same sum, against an estimate of £100-150. 

It was the ‘O’ gauge scale model locomotive collection that stole the limelight though. This collection took a collective £8,335 and every example sold above the upper estimate, with one exception that sold for a mid-estimate sum. The collection had been consigned by a private source in north Shropshire and had been handled with kid gloves by the collector, with each train having a foam-lined pine carrying box. Consequently, the condition was very good and the quality was above par, ensuring each lot was keenly contested, with phone and online bidders of course, but refreshingly live bidders too! The top lot was the model of Dartmouth Castle, illustrated, that sold for a hammer price of £480!

There will be a large, scale model of a railway station, paintings of locomotives by Bernard Jones and some more scale model locomotives from the same estate in the next Antique and Interiors sale on the 2 June.

For more information or to receive a valuation, please call 01743 450 700 or email [email protected]