LOOK HERE FOR PREVIEWS OF UPCOMING BRITISH SPORTING GUN AUCTIONS AND REVIEWS OF THOSE RECENTLY HELD, WITH PRICES ACHIEVED

2010 - The Sales So Far. 

A GUN BUILT for Scottish Politician, the Rt. Hon Richard Haldane, who was noted for forming the Territorial Army in 1907 sold for £15,600, Today (Monday, August 23, 2010) in Gavin Gardiner Ltd’s annual auction of Fine Modern and Vintage Sporting Guns, which was held in association with Sotheby's at the Gleneagles Hotel in Auchterarder, Perthshire, Scotland. 

Bought by the UK Trade, the fine 12-bore ‘Royal’ model sidelock ejector gun by Holland & Holland, was built in 1904 and presented as a 21st Birthday present to James C. Kemp, D.S.O., M.C. It had been estimated to fetch £10,000-15,000 and was sold with it's original case, bill of sale for £74.14.0 and accessories [Lot 118].                                                                                                 

Also included in the sale was a magnificent pair of 12-bore self-opening sidelock ejector guns by James Purdey & Sons, which were built in 1999 and sold for £96,000 [Lot 103]. The guns were virtually unused and were expected to sell for between £70,000 - 90,000.

Other interesting pieces included a rare 16-bore pinfire hammer gun by Purdey, which was built for the 2^nd Duke of Wellington sold for £4,200. It had originally cost £57.15s when it was built 150years ago [Lot 162]. A punt gun by Holland & Holland, with its matching grey-painted punt and custom-made trailer sold for £12,600 against an estimate of £8,000-12,000 [Lot 159], while a lightweight pair of 12-bore round action ejector guns by Edinburgh-maker John Dickson & Sons, dating from 1927, sold for £16,800, against an estimate of £14,000-18,000 [Lot 106].

Topically, a fine 12-bore Battle of Britain Commemorative Model by Beretta, built in 1990 for the 50^th Anniversary sold for £4,200 [Lot 202]. Number 50 of a limited edition of 50 guns, this was the only one with ‘deluxe’ gold engraving and was completed for Squadron Leader Tony Down who was then flying with the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. 

Gavin Gardiner said: “This is the 43^rd year that a Sporting Gun Auction has been held at the prestigious Gleneagles Hotel and I was delighted with the results of today’s sale which always attracts strong international interest for fine guns and rifles. Interestingly Richard Haldane, later Viscount Haldane died in Auchterarder in 1928, so I was very pleased that we sold this gun, and several other guns with such strong Scottish connections.”

NEXT SALE: DECEMBER 15, 2010 – SOTHEBY’S NEW BOND STREET, LONDON

For Further information on the auction, please visithttp://www.gavingardiner.com" www.gavingardiner.com or call 0044 (0)1798 875300

Bonhams did well in July, with good prices across the board. We picked up a nice Churchill Premiere but saw everything else we bid on go higher than we were prepared to go. March saw sales at Bonhams and Holt's doing good business. Holt's were down on numbers because Xmas gets in the way of collecting lots but it was still a big sale by industry standards. Denys Finch Hatton's double rifle sold this time at £55,000, just below the low estimate but still a hefty wad of cash once the commission is added. We collected a lovely 1926 Gibbs double rifle in .22 Savage for a Texan client and a side-lever side-lock by Stephen Grant with a decent ejector system for £6,500 plus commission.

Bidding was brisk and good stuff, as usual, made good money. Hammer guns continue to soar in value, with an Atkin 12-bore making £7,000.

The highlight of the Bonham's sale was a pair of Holland & Holland 16-bore side-locks. We had instructions to go hard on these but they were withdrawn on the day of the sale. Very disappointing. We did collect a 16-bore by Watson Bros for £1,300.

Gavin Gardiner sold 70% of his catalogue in April, in Bond Street. It was hard work, with a lot of stuff making the low estimate or just below. some sales after the auction were done and this bumped up the figure a good bit. 

Southams was interesting in June. I took a wall measuring tool to some of the hammer guns and found them to be down to 13 thou! Unwary punters bid strongly on them and they made £650-£1200 but are un-saleable and may be unsafe. Southams do not publish wall measurements and they do not provide gauges. buyer beware!

Early signs are good and the auction rooms are showing that the gun market is weathering the recession nicely. 

The 'Purdey' in the photo sold at Southams to an overseas bidder in June. The letter from Purdey was in response to an enquiry about the serial number. The original spec shows a snap under-lever and damascus barrels. This is a cheap trade gun faked to fool the unwary.

We help protect buyers at auctions by weeding out these kinds of issues before money changes hands. Some of the nicer hammer guns in this sale had barrels down to 13 thou, which makes them almost valueless, yet unsuspecting punters paid good money for them. Remember, auctions are tough environments in which to win big.  We give you the advantage.

HOLT'S held a sale on June 24th in Hammersmith and again we saw our clients buying well. Some prefer to allow us to act for them, providing reports and bidding on their behalf, collecting, storing and shipping the guns to them after the sale. notable this time was a US client, who secured a Beesley sidelock for £3,100 and an Australian, who we got a Boss sidelock for £9,200 bids.

Others come to London for a guided auction experience. We accompany them to the viewing, look at guns together, check and value them and then the client can bid for himself, we collect the guns and take them to the airport with the client and check them through customs for him. This way we saved one client £800 in shipping for he five guns he bought and another on saved £1,500 for the nine he bought. This more than covered the plane ticket.

This time, after the auction, we took advantage of the pigeons available and spend a day shooting the guns the clients had bought, before preparing to send them home. 

The Holt's sales are held over three days and in large, airy rooms in Hammersmith, where the whole of the gun trade meet and chat. Pictured is Graeme Wright, the Australian double rifle expert, who wrote 'Shooting the British Double Rifle', the best work yet written on the subject. He is holding a Hollis double rifle that one of our clients bought for a bid of £3,900, which was a steal. It is a Hollis .450/.400 nitro express, fully restored and ideal as a working African rifle. Bores are great and I would not hesitate to take this on my next foray after buffalo or elephant.  After the sale, Holt's commented on some of the results:  

"Holt’s June sale saw temperatures soaring in the sale room and not just because of the weather; 

many lots were hotly contested with some well deserved results, especially for items with 

provenance. The history of an item and/or its owner lends an interesting perspective and brings 

the item to ‘life’; we can picture the lot in use or perhaps hear about the interesting times of the 

person who chose to own it. This can only benefit the eventual hammer price, and in the case of 

lots that have had prominent or famous owners the realised figure can be far in excess of the 

value had it had no provenance.  

We were very pleased to have been entrusted with the sale of Lord Louis Mountbatten’s personal 

collection of Section 5 sidearms, and these illustrated perfectly the benefits of provenance. All 

seven lots attracted huge interest with bids coming from the room, commission and various 

telephones, the items amassed a total hammer price of £24,000 against a collective reserve of 

£5,300. The collection began with a Colt .38 ACP ‘Model 1908’ self-loading pistol (Mountbatten’s 

personal sidearm) that sold for £3,000 and two lots later a rare Army & Navy retailed .455 Webley 

‘Fosbery’ was quickly bid up to £5,500. A fine C96 ‘Cone Hammer’ 7.63mm Mauser pistol retailed 

by Westley Richards realised £4,500, but the item that attracted most bids was lot 999, a possibly 

unique gold-plated .22RF pistol in the form of a writing pencil. This was very hard to put a value 

to and the catalogue estimate of £700 – 900 was far exceeded, the hammer finally falling at an 

impressive £7,000.   

Other lots with notable provenance included lot 98, a shoulder mount of a cape buffalo that sold 

for £3,000, lot 799, a 12-bore pinfire (converted from percussion) by J. Purdey that had been 

owned by Alfred Lord Tennyson which realised £1,500, lot 1010, a .44-40 Colt ‘Frontier Six- 

Shooter’ with an interesting history was bid up to £4,000. Amongst the shotguns were a pair of 

12-bore sidelock ejectors by J. Purdey & Sons that had been built for the 5th Earl of Lucan and 

eventually handed down to the 7th Earl, ‘Lucky’ Lucan as he was sometimes known. These 

interesting guns were hotly bid up to £25,000 to a telephone bidder although we are able to 

confirm that it was not their previous owner on the line! 

The sale in general went well and saw many other interesting items come to hammer with 

encouraging results. The accessories section saw a fine Edwardian gentleman’s dressing case 

with silver and glass accoutrements sell at £3,900 against an upper estimate of £2,000. Good 

quality guncases and cartridge magazines attracted their usual high level of interest and a well- 

made hunting knife by Wostenholm achieved a hammer price of £550 in the edged weapons 

section. A magnificent .450/400 BPE double rifle by J. Purdey & Sons in its original case with 

accessories was the jewel of the obsolete calibres and this fine rifle deservedly sold at the top 

estimate of £30,000.   

In the afternoon session another very fine double rifle by Purdey, this time an ‘on ticket’ .30 

Purdey built for the Maharaja of Patiala in 1937 sold for £40,000. The shotguns, especially ones by 

English makers, were keenly fought over as always and the pairs saw a brace of ‘Royals’ by 

Holland & Holland make £27,000 in spite of having replacement stocks. As the value of best 

London guns continues to rise the next models down are being sucked up into the financial 

vacuum left behind. This was borne out by various lots including ‘Badminton’ and ‘Dominion’ 

models, also by Holland & Holland, that sold in the main comfortably above their top estimate. 

Sidelevers also appear to be gathering admirers and lot 1482, a sidelock by Stephen Grant, selling 

at a top estimate of £8,000. Over and unders sold predictably well with the prices of Berettas and 

Browning showing especially buoyant results. Also of note was a fine 12-bore by Perugini & 

Visini that sold for £8,000. 

The last section of the sale, hammerguns, saw an interesting consignment show a remarkable 

result for the owner. When consigned, lot 1850 was thought by the vendor to be a rather tired and 

uninteresting old shotgun. In fact it was an extremely rare hammer ejector by Boss & Co. that 

realised a hammer price of £12,000, showing just how easy it can be to under-value one’s 

property! 

The total hammer price for Thursday is approaching £1.1m with the results of aftersales and the 

sealed bid sale still to be added. Roland Elworthy of Holt’s commented, “Once again we have 

shown shotguns and firearms to be a solid investment for vendors. Very few commodities can be 

owned and enjoyed for their intended use and yet still provide a tangible return when sold. We 

look forward to an even busier September sale, hopefully boosted by a recovering economy.” 

Who Are the UK Gun Auctioneers?

BONHAMS (Knightsbridge) Bonham's run three Sporting Gun sales annually. Patrick Hawes has developed the department well since taking over from Chris Austyn and continues to provide good showcases for guns and rifles across the range. Viewing is at Bonham's HQ in Montpellier Street, just down the road from Harrods.

GAVIN GARDINER (Bond Street) Gavin was department head at Sotheby's and now runs all their gun sales through his own company, using all the Sotheby's facilities. Sales of around 200-300 guns, with many high quality pieces are run three times a year, two in London and one in Scotland, at the Gleneagles Hotel.

SOUTHAMS (Bedford) This is a growing trade auction with a lot of low value items and accessories, like shooting sticks and wellies, as well as guns. It can be useful for picking up the odd bargain but take a measuring tool and bore gauge and be very careful!.

SCOTARMS (Newark) Scottarms grew out of Weller & Dufty and is still the major source of 'trade' guns that have no guarantees nor recourse if problemmatic. Lots of bits and pieces and old stock from closing businesses. Cramped conditions, not much viewing time and a lot of junk to wade through to find the odd gem, which makes all the effort worth it.

COYS (Blenheim Palace) Coys have teamed up with Patrick Keen to deliver gun auctions alongside their well established classic car auctions. Normally expect two or three sales a year. 

Overseas Auctions

James D. Julia hold regular sales in the USA. They are based in Maine and publish catalogues as well as displaying goods on-line. 

Charlton Hall auction guns each December in Columbia, South Carolina. 

Australia Arms Auctions are worth a look, also holding regular sales down-under. Their next sale is on Sunday 3rd October at 87 Eley Road, Blackburn, Victoria, with viewing on the day preceding the sale. You can bid on-line for this one and prices can be lower than the UK for some items so it is definitely worth a look. The website link is: www.australianarmsauctions.com/index.htm   

When are the Next Sales?  

Holt’s, Hammersmith www.holtsauctioneers.com

Next Sale: September 23rd 2010

 Holts will be at the CLA Game Fair in July so be sure to drop in and see what they have to show you. Already in for the September sale are some of the best .410 boxlocks I have seen at auction in recent years, a William Evans and a Robertson. Both expected to make £3,000-£4,000 if I know anything about the money these little guns usually achieve. 

Southams Newark, 9th September. http://www.southams.com/html/auction_preview.php

The catalogue is now on-line showing highlights and there will be an on-line bidding facility.  We can do reports on guns the day before the sale or we can act on the day according to findings on the morning view.