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Auction News - Mullocks Annual Review 2007 It has been another bumper year for Mullock’s – with a brand new name and record breaking success in every department. Such has been our growing success with our specialist auctions, that in February we decided to end our long associations with agriculture and concentrate solely on our sporting and historical documents operations, and in order to reflect the change, we changed our name to Mullock’s Specialist Auctioneers and Valuers. Undoubtedly the highlight of the year came at the two day summer sale in July with the consignment of a rare boxing oil painting of one of the all time greatest boxing world champions Jimmy Wilde being presented to Prince of Wales and future King of England Edward VIII after defeating Joe Lynch in 1919 at the National Sporting Club in London. The fine oil painting was keenly contested by two telephone bidders and was eventually sold for £155,000 (including buyer’s premium) – a world record for a boxing memorabilia. Every section saw individual prices in the £5,000-15,000 bracket none more so than in the last sale of the year when a collection of 42 private letters from Don Bradman sold for £12, 500, earlier in the year a 1958 fully signed dinner menu by the Busby Babes prior to the fatal Munich Air disaster sold for £12,000. Rare Early Rugby lots met with increasing interest and two lots of particular note included a rare Rugby Programme for the first England International match against France played at Twickenham in 1911 sell for £2,700 and unusual Book publication covering the British Isles Tour to South Africa in 1910 covering both Association football and Rugby codes sell to a high of £3,200 and a 1926 New Zealand Maori International Rugby shirt go to £2,800 just to name a few of the rugby highlights of the year. Not to be out done the golf section saw several private collections come onto the market with art selling for £8,000, early longnose clubs for £7,000 and Morris feathery sold by private treaty for £8,000. The enormously popular Vintage fishing tackle sales saw many rare reels and accessories maintaining high price levels with record prices being achieved across the board with reels selling up to £6,000, rare oil bottles to £2,000. Each of the other sporting sections continue to thrive with many notable prices being achieved but collectors are now becoming more selective and sophisticated across the board which means that we as auctioneers have to follow suit as demand for the lower end is very difficult to move – no doubt as a direct result of Ebay which has regrettably no control over supply and demand. Another success story is the ever-popular Historical Document Sales, which have seen a steady increase in turnover throughout the year, and with our reputation going before us there are plans to increase the number of sales this year to one every six weeks. Again world record prices were achieved – this time for a group of children’s board games produced by the Nazis during World War Two which attracted world wide interest, and achieved a major news story which was beamed around the world by the American channel CNN who came to our Shropshire base to film on location. Expected to reach no more than £500, the games eventually went for £9,000 (including premium). Our documents sales are now recognised as the leaders in their field, being the only regular sales of their kind and we look to increase turnover even further in 2008, as more people recognise that we can achieve better than London prices at considerably lower costs. Because of the nature of our business we have encountered controversy, public outcry, international, national and local media coverage, whilst still maintaining high level of professionalism which has kept our company at the forefront and we intend to continuing acting on behalf of our clients worldwide and bring attention to many of the rare items that come our way. In all we have held over 20 sales this year to including 3 Online Golf Auctions, as well as 4 Specialist Football and Rugby, 3 specialist Golf Auctions, 3 Specialist Vintage Fishing tackle auctions and 2 General Sporting Auctions with specialist sections covering cricket tennis Olympics, boxing motor racing, horse racing, snooker billiards et al and 6 sales of Historical Documents – overall turnover in excess of £1,000,000. Mullocks’ will continue to stay market leaders in their field and will be looking to expand into new fields, as well as staying head of other competition. This year saw the introduction of Bidlive with both audio and visual online bidding faculties, the re introduction of their online auctions in conjunction with Sportbilia and are now looking at immediate post auction sales for unsold lots as well as private sales world wide. On behalf of Mullock’s undoubtedly the Europe’s No. 1 Specialist Sporting Auction house – there is no other auction house that conducts as many sporting sales any where in the world and John would like to thank one and all for their continued support throughout 2007 and look forward to 2008. The coming year will see John and his team of specialists out on the road again conducting a series of Free Valuation Days – so come and meet the team that do care for you and your collections – this is our core business – and all our specialists will look after your needs from start to finish – both on and off the rostum. |