IT’S A  bit like school. You study hard (in theory anyway), pass countless exams (hopefully) and over time, pick the subjects you like best. Then, if everything goes to plan, higher education beckons. Now’s the time to specialise.

Be transported by slideshow to the saleroom

To the exclusion of everything else (well, almost everything) you’re concentrating now on one subject alone. You’re mixing with like-minded individuals and despite the competition, the tuition you received in earlier years pays dividends.

Ironically, so it is with fine art auction sales. With bidding sometimes rising at the rate of £1,000 a time, to the uninitiated, they can be as scary as the first day at a new school. So how do you become initiated? Actually, it’s simple: like any learning, you start in the junior class, although in this case, they’re called general sales.

Almost every auctioneer in the country has them. They might be disguised as something

different, favourites include Carousel, or Colonnade, Gallery, County or Arcade sales, but call them what you will, at the end of the day, monthly general sales are the perfect place to learn about auctions and to cut your teeth on making that first crucial bid for the bargain you can’t wait to get home.

Monthly auctions of "Victorian, Edwardian and later furniture and effects", as the saleroom jargon has it, are the backbone of many auction houses. The property on offer comes from many and varied sources but the thrill is always in the chase.

The best sales have printed catalogues with estimates of the likely selling price listed clearly. Produced as cheaply as possible, the catalogues invariably have few or no images to help new buyers, but they do offer useful brief descriptions so that at least you know what you’re looking at and roughly what it’s worth.

The worst are photocopied A4 sheets of paper that serve scant purpose other than giving punters an idea of the order of sale.

Best of all, from a bargain hunter’s point of view, is a general sale with absolutely no catalogue. They are for the auction pupil who has reached GCSE level: only by viewing the sale thoroughly can you possibly contemplate bidding and knowing what’s been sold next is down to concentrating hard on the auctioneer’s patter.

The goods on offer can range from the very good, to the kind of stuff more generally seen in a charity shop. Families moving home, or downsizing; executors of a deceased estate needing to dispose of unwanted objects; dealers trading on stock that has been on sale but found no takers; collectors trading up (or down) and auctioneers re-offering unsold lots from their fine sales, the variety is endless. The challenge is being able to spot the wheat from the chaff.

This is where the learning process begins. Having first identified their particular area of interest, collectors buying at auction need to know their subject, be able to spot examples and know that they are right at 20 paces. For homework, they need to read as much as they can about their chosen collecting field.

They should also visit museums where examples will be on display and they need to tour the antique shops and collectors’ fairs where they can learn the retail value of the objects they desire.

There is no substitute for handling pieces to get a feel for what’s old and what’s not and this is where viewing as many auctions as possible will pay dividends. It costs nothing to attend an auction and visitors are positively encouraged to touch and handle what’s on offer.

Having viewed the sale, it makes sense to stay on to watch and learn how the auction is conducted. It’s also interesting to compare actual sale prices with the auctioneer’s estimates, where published, or to play a guessing game with prices at the fall of the hammer.

It may sound juvenile, but you’d be surprised how with a little experience, you can get one step ahead of the action.

And that’s what it’s all about. Whether you’re a student (or a landlord) furnishing a flat, a first-time buyer kitting out a house on a shoestring or just an inveterate collector, these monthly auction sales are a honey pot. The joy is knowing that whatever you buy, its value will at worst remain static or at best be an asset that could prove to be an investment.

Buy a new piece of furniture on the High Street and its value starts to fall the minute you get it home. The same piece of furniture, albeit second-hand, can be had for often a fraction of the cost when it comes under the auctioneer’s hammer.

Buy a piece of Victorian mahogany or Edwardian oak, and not only are you getting value for money but also something of a quality that is hard to find in today’s flat-packed, throwaway world.

And then there’s the thrill of the chase. Advice for the first-time bidder is to be a spectator at a couple of auctions to build your confidence before testing the water.

When the time comes to try you hand, be sure to set yourself a firm upper limit and stick to it. Bid clearly and confidently and hope no one else has spotted the lot you’ve set your heart on taking home.

Some of my best buys have come from auctions and I for one can’t wait for the January sales.

That said, I could become an armchair golfer, or rather a collector of the implements associated with the sport. My interest stems from watching an auction of golfing memorabilia some years ago in which a single golf club sold for a record £49,000.

Dating from the earliest days of golf, the club had been made by a blacksmith, so it was pretty crude, to say the least. It was discovered in a garden shed in Edinburgh and the story made international headlines.

It was not unlike the “Very Early and Important Square Toe Light Iron, circa 1600″ pictured in the slideshow here. Indeed, it may be the very same club. Either way, prices have spiralled in the meantime.

Designed primarily for use when the ball lay on sandy ground or among small stones, the club, considered by many to be one of the two oldest surviving irons in existence, is now valued at £75,000-125,000.

In fact, the market in golfiana has been something akin to a golfer’s spirits when negotiating a difficult course – not exactly boom and bust, but certainly boom and decline to saner levels.

An important test of the market comes next month, when Sotheby’s New York offers the “Very Early and Important Square Toe Light Iron” and a further 800 or so others that comprise the Jeffery B Ellis Antique Golf Club Collection.

More than 600 lots with estimates ranging from £100 to £150,000, the collection is widely regarded as most wide-ranging and historically important in the world. It is expected to sell for more than £2 million.

Comprising mostly British clubs (or perhaps that should be Scottish, since that’s where the game was invented) the sale will appeal to UK collectors able to take advantage of the current strength of the pound.

Jeffery Ellis purchased his first antique golf clubs at a charity shop in 1974 and since then has been fascinated by their evolution. Assembled one at a time, his collection covers every aspect of the golf club between 1600 and the early 1930s.

By 1979, his passion grew to be a full-time business and he became a leading authority on the subject and the author of three books: “The Clubmaker’s Art: Antique Golf Clubs and Their History”, regarded as the industry’s bible for antique golf clubs; “The Golf Club: 400 Years of The Good, The Beautiful & The Creative” and this year, a revised and expanded second edition of The Clubmaker’s Art, which is now the industry standard.

From its 15th century roots in Scotland to the end of the 19th century, golf was the province of royalty, played by wealthy enthusiasts who could afford expensive hand-crafted clubs.

Clubmaking was an art practiced by a select group of skilled craftsmen who were often champion golfers themselves, and were also frequently groundsmen on the courses where they played.

Without the modern-day restrictive golf club regulations, these early makers devised an ingenious array of equipment such as cleeks, spoons, mashies, and niblicks, all of which are now collected eagerly.

Clock the link for a slideshow of some of the rare clubs in Sotheby’s sale..

Second oldest club in the collection is the rare “Square Toe Heavy Iron”, circa 1700 (estimate £75,000-100,000) now found only in Scottish club or private collections.

In the late 1700s, makers began to mark their clubs, which prior to 1890, had elongated, wooden heads, naturally called “long nose” clubs.

Pick of the collection here is Long Nose Putter, circa 1750, made by Andrew Dickson, as a boy he caddied for the Duke of York and was the first clubmaker to mark his clubs (estimate £100,000-150,000).

The collection includes a Long Nose Putter (£3,000-5,000) and a Long Nose Brassie Spoon (pictured), (£4.000-7.500) made by Willie Park, Snr., a professional who won four British Open tournaments including the first ever held in 1860 at Prestwick Golf Club

“Old” Tom Morris was one of the most revered and beloved clubmakers and players of his era.

The collection includes seven of his long nose clubs including a rare example for left-handed players (£3,750-7,500).

Morris lost the first British Open to Willie Park by two strokes (in a one day, three round tourney) but won an astonishing four championships in the next six years, in 1861, 1862, 1864 and 1867.

As the official club maker at the prestigious Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews from 1817 until his death in 1856, Hugh Philp was recognised as the Stradivarius of clubmakers for his meticulous craftsmanship.

The sale includes four such treasures including one made as a presentation putter carved with a Celtic cross (pictured), which is estimated at £17,500-22,500.

Five generations of the McEwan family made clubs at Edinburgh and Musselburgh from 1770 to 1800 and their clubs are sought after for their long, slender heads and necks and shallow faces, attributes similar to Philp’s clubs.

The family is represented by five clubs, notably two spoons, one with McEwan stamped in block letters, the other in script (the difference is estimates of £7,500-12,500 and £10,000-17,500 respectively) and the only known Long Nose Play Club circa 1865 with a 45-inch “fishing rod” shaft (£8,750/12,500).

Other makers and golfing bon vivants represented are Willie Dunn Snr, greenkeeper at Blackheath and a high stakes money match player who once played a match of 20 rounds over 10 days; David Strath, who tied for the 1876 British Open Championship but refused to play off in order to preserve his honor and Robert Ferguson, who won three British Opens in a row and then worked for the last 20 years of his life as a caddy.

Sotheby’s sale will run over two days on Thursday and Friday September 27-28. Sadly, no UK View is planned but the collection will be on show in New York from September 20.

And if you cannot get over for the sale, Sotheby’s will be only too happy to accept commission bids or, by arrangement, bids by telephone as the sale proceeds. Telephone 001 212 606 7910 for further information.

When a buyer clicks to buy and pays up, the bot is programmed to automatically email the product and at the same time, a standard generic positive feedback notice which is recorded on the buyer’s profile.

Impressed at the quality and speed of the service, the buyer responds with positive feedback for the vendor and everyone is happy. And so are the scammers.

Now the crooks have got wise to the system. They use similar bots to create a large number of fake buyers’ accounts and to locate and purchase the digitally delivered cheapo stuff, thus building up convincing amounts of positive feedback.

The rest is obvious. They then set up bogus sales for valuable kit that doesn’t exist, rake in the proceeds and vanish.

Time was when it was enough to simply check that a seller had a good level of positive feedback to feel comfortable about buying from him. Now it’s becoming increasingly important to check out exactly what goods the feedback relates to. If you find lots of 1p purchases listed – steer clear.

In his heyday Cheshire’s Rushton Mac was acclaimed as the best English-bred greyhound ever. Having achieved a trio of victories in the English, Welsh and Scottish Derbies; recorded wins in 14 successive races and posted five track records, the description was beyond doubt.

Now, 50 years later, the magnificent silver trophy presented by the Greyhound Racing Association for Mac’s 1955 English Greyhound Derby win is to be sold. Chester fine art and antiques auctioneers Byrne’s will offer the trophy together with Mac’s trap No. 2 jacket worn for the race; the winner’s jacket worn by the dog during the subsequent parade and presentation, a photograph of the trophy presentation; an original race card from the meeting held on June 25 1955 and one of Mac’s stud cards. The collection is expected to fetch up to £3,000 when it is sold on the second of a two-day sale on Wednesday and Thursday, December 7 and 8.

Rushton Mac was bred out of Rushton News and Rushton Panda by the late Mr Frank Johnson and his wife Mary at Boothouse Farm, Rushton, in Tarporley, Cheshire, where they ran a greyhound stud and licensed training facility. Mr Johnson’s son, Peter, a retired farmer from Wrenbury, is selling the collection. He said greyhound breeding and racing was the great love of his parents’ lives.

“Boothouse was a small farm on the Oulton Park estate and they started greyhound racing with a bitch named Fly Joan soon after they were married in the early 1940s. They were granted a licence to train dogs on their own account in1953 and by then they were travelling to races all over the country,” Peter Johnson said.

“My sister, Ann, and I were always being bundled into the back of a van with the dogs and we used to help at the tracks. It was so exciting when we came home as winners. It was very unusual to run English-bred greyhounds because in those days most were bred in Ireland.”

Mac’s track record was unique. Apart from being a triple Derby winner in 1955, the grandson of Fly Joan, the Johnson’s original dog, Mac was awarded Silver Greyhounds in 1954 and 1955 for Best English Bred Greyhound.

A contemporary report of the English Derby run at the famous White City Stadium in London, said that “early round results implied this was a two dog race and the betting reflected this. While Rushton Mac was a well backed 5/2 shot, the clear odds on 1/2 favourite was the three dog Barrowside. All seemed well for favourite backers as Barrowside led from the boxes, with Home Straight and Rushton Mac following closely behind. Barrowside went wide at the first providing Rushton with the opportunity on the inside. Down the back straight Rushton maintained a length lead, always challenged by Barrowside, and these went clear of the others led by Home Straight and Coolkill Chieftain. Around the fourth bend Ruston was still in the lead as Barrowside mounted a strong challenge, but Rushton held on by three-quarters of a length, with the pair some four and a half lengths ahead of the fast finishing Coolkill Chieftain.

Mac was retired and put to stud in late 1956 or early 1957 having won more than £8,500 in prize money. Mr and Mrs Johnson retired in the early Sixties and the trophy and archive has remained in the family since. By the important London silversmith Garrard & Company, it weighs a whopping 64½ ounces and comes complete with turned wooden socle and fitted mahogany case.

The trophy and archive is one highlight in Byrne’s sale of more than 850 lots of fine art and antiques from various owners. The sale starts at 12 noon and is on view on Sunday December 4 from 11am to 2pm; on Monday December 5 from 10am to 5pm; Tuesday December 6 from 10am to 7pm and on the morning of the sale from 9am. Catalogues, price £8 (including postage) are available from the auctioneers and can be viewed online at www.byrnesauctioneers.com.

As a 13-year-old schoolgirl, Lynne Peters couldn’t believe her luck when a backstage helper sneaked her and her sister into the back of the theatre to watch The Beatles play live on stage.

When he came back after the show with a photograph signed by each of the Fab Four, she was ecstatic and the photograph — a page from the girls’ comic “Boyfriend” — was given pride of place in her bedroom.

The year was 1963 and Beatlemania was sweeping the country, but John Paul George and Ringo were still coming to terms with their new-found fame. So unaccustomed was he to signing autographs, Ringo started to write Richard Starkey, but hurriedly crossed it out to replace it with his stage name.

Now, more than 40 years later, that autographed page is valuable. When Chester auctioneers Byrne’s sell it on Wednesday, December 7, they expect a clamour from collectors of Beatles memorabilia and a selling price of £2,000-3,000, possibly more.

Mrs Peters, now a 56-year-old Chester housewife, said she was amazed that the picture was so valuable. Recalling the mild spring evening when her father took her and her younger sister, Denise, ticketless, to see The Beatles, she said that at first they were among a huge crowd of fans milling about outside the Royalty Theatre, in City Road, Chester, where the group was topping the bill.

“Someone spotted the boys in the Chinese restaurant opposite the theatre,” she said. “Chaos erupted and we were part of a wave of screaming, ecstatic fans, trying to get to them. The boys were mobbed as they tried to get back to the theatre as the fans and surged back and forth, hoping to touch them.

“Somehow, they got back inside the theatre in one piece to begin what was to become an unforgettable early Beatles show for me. My father knew one of the backstage helpers who said he would be able to get as tickets. But it was a sell-out and so we had to wait in the foyer while everyone filed past is to take their seats. But the helper said he’d get us in and he sneaked us through the doors on the balcony and told us to stand at the back. It didn’t matter that we didn’t have seats, because everyone was on their feet throughout the concert.

“The curtains rose to the opening bars of “Please Please Me” and brought an electrified wave of shouting, screaming, ecstatic, mainly teenage fans to the front of the balcony. Numbers such as “Love Me Do”, “When I Saw Her Standing There” and many others were the prelude to a grand finale where the boys brought the house down belting out the unforgettable “She Loves You”. Coming back on stage several times to pay tribute to us adoring fans, The Beatles brought the curtain down on an evening forever emblazoned on my memory.

“Before he left us, I’d given the stagehand the page from my comic, which my dad had pasted onto a piece of hardboard, and I asked him to try to get me their autographs. When my dad picked us up outside the theatre, the stagehand came out and I couldn’t believe it, they’d all signed it. I took it to school to show my friends and it was then I realised that Ringo had started off by signing it Richard Starkey, but then he had crossed it out.

“I’ve treasured it ever since but lately it’s been kept in a wardrobe wrapped up carefully to protect it, so I decided that now is the time to sell it and let someone else from a younger generation enjoy it as I have.”

Byrne’s annual pre-Christmas sale includes antique furniture, fine jewellery, silver, ceramics, objets d’art, pictures and collectors’ ceramics, notably a good single-owner collection of Clarice Cliff, militaria, toys and dolls and other collectables.

The sale starts at 11am and is on view on Sunday December 4 from 10am to 3pm; on Monday and Tuesday December 25 and 6 from 9am to 5pm and on the morning of the sale from 9am. Catalogues, price £6 (including postage) are available from the auctioneers and can be viewed online at www.byrnesauctioneers.co.uk.

Byrne’s fine art auctioneers, the North West’s most dynamic auction
house, was founded by Jo Boucher and Adrian Byrne, formerly of Hall’s
auctioneers, Shrewsbury. Byrne’s conducts 20 sales a year from a
prestigious listed mansion house in Chester’s Watergate Street, the
former location of Sotheby’s North West regional saleroom, and latterly
a Hall’s saleroom which Jo and Adrian took over in 2003.

More information from Byrne’s on 01244 312300.

Rare Steiff Teddy bear is star of Christmas collectors’ sale

The little boys looked forward to family trips from their home in Vienna to visit their three aunts in Düsseldorf, but not necessarily to see the matronly trio with their smothering hugs and embarrassing kisses.

Instead, the visits meant the three nephews got the chance to play with Smuggers, a magnificent and expensive Teddy bear – christened so because of the smug look on his face – which was purchased specially to amuse the boys when they grew bored.

But the visits were few and far between and so in the intervening years Smuggers sat in a cupboard which explains his as-new condition – all the more remarkable considering he was born in 1903.

Now Smuggers is about to start a new life. Passed though the family to the present Canterbury owner, he is one of the stars among a gleeful group of toys and dolls in the annual Christmas auction of antiques and collectors’ items at The Canterbury Auction Galleries. The sale is on Tuesday December 6.

A product of the German soft toy company founded in 1847 by Margete Steiff, Smuggers stands just short of 12 inches and has a plush mohair coat, eyes made from black shoe buttons and the characteristic brass ear tag Steiff trademark. He’s yours for £1,500-2,000.

More information from The Canterbury Auction Galleries on 01227 763337.

Heard the one about the auctioneer and the Punk Princess? Read Artnet’s report of Phillips’ sale of contemporary art owned by this German aristocrat who married in to the wealth of the Thurn und Taxis family of Germany. Auctioneer Simon de Pury had such fun, he paused the proceedings to tell the audience a joke. Read it here and decided for yourself whether it was funny.