Domestic antiques

Press, 7 October 1980, Page 22

Domestic antiques

If. you still have your grandmother’s sewing machine, or some other i piece of aged and antique equipment, stored away somewhere, do not throw it out. To the high-priced list of furniture, artefects, militaria, paintings, coins, stamps, and books, have been added antique domestic articles. At a recent Dunbar Sloane auction in Wellington a number of such items attracted considerable if erratic, interest. For example, a cased set of scales for weighing gold (mainly) was sold for $2OO. A Sikes cased hydrometer set went for $2O, a Kodak vest pocket “autographic folding camera” for $2O, a Victorian manual key-cutting machine, $lO, and a Victorian electromagnetic shock therapy machine, $l5. Boxed chemical scales sold for $55, a German handoperated cased sewing 'machine. $2O. a Wilcox and Gibbs hand-operated sewing machine, $35, and a royal ruby hand-operated sewing machine, with case, $2O. These prices may not seem out of the way, but a Sanderson English plate bellows camera with tripod and plates fetched $390, although a Manon and Co. bellows camera with plates and lens realised only $3B. A Cooke Troughton and Simms, Ltd, English cased brass theodolite sold for $650 and a cased Henry Crouch brass microscope with lenses and accessories, for $550. In the Maori artefact section of the sale, $2200 was paid for a preEuropean greenstone tiki with a broken foot, $6OO

for a greenstone mere, $3OO for a pre-European greenstone pendant, and $260 for a carved canoe paddle. In the militaria section, $240 was paid for a late eighteenth century brassbarrelled flintlock "blunderbuss, $3OO for a Nazi naval

officer’s presentation dir and scabbard surmountec by an eagle with fouled anchor, and $230 for a splendid Victorian artillery officer’s brown fur busby with hat box. —Oliver Riddell