HALLS, SHREWSBURY

A silver tea service presented to the footballing legend Sir Stanley Matthews, to mark his record 44th cap for England, made £4,800 (including a buyer’s premium of 19.5 percent) on June 3.

Hallmarked Sheffield 1932, the four-piece service carried the monogram ‘SM’ and the Stoke City crest. It was presented to Sir Stanley by his beloved club Stoke City following his 44th appearance for England against Belgium on January 19, 1946.

The tea service was one of the items discovered at a Flog It! valuation day at Sandon Hall by valuers David Fletcher, Christina Trevanion and Charles Hanson.

Halls’ fine art director Jeremy Lamond said: “We were delighted with the price achieved for the tea service which was a very fitting tribute to Sir Stanley, a football legend.Any item associated with him attracts a huge amount of interest from football fans and collectors alike and the tea service had the added bonus of being connected to his record appearance for England.” Sir Stanley Matthews’ tea service made £4,800

HANSONS, ETWALL

Outstanding examples of Norwegian enamelled silver from a private collection went under the hammer at Hansons’ decorative art sale on June 22.

The iconic pieces included work by ground-breaking designers Bjorn Sigurd Ostern,Willy Winnaess, Marianne Berg and David Anderson – four of Norway’s foremost silversmiths

Hansons’ specialist John Keightley said: “These pieces exemplify both the radical and forwardthinking designs of Norwegian jewellery in the 50s and 60s, a time which saw an unparalleled level of craftsmanship. Unfortunately by the end of the 1970s, the golden age was over and the pieces which formed this collection reflect a level of design and craftsmanship which is unlikely to be seen again.”

One of the top lots, which realised £385 (including a buyer’s premium of 17.5 percent), was a 1960s silver and gilt enamelled icicle necklace, by the Norwegian silversmith David Anderson. John added: “It was great to see so many different bidders looking for either a one-off piece for themselves or something to add to their collection.”

Work from some of Norway’s best post-war silversmiths was on sale

JOHN NICHOLSON’S, FERNHURST

An amulet thought to date back to Tudor times was the top lot at a unique collection of rural bygones, which went under the hammer in Fernhurst on June 20.

The amulet which made £520 hammer was made up of small stones and a horseshoe found in a Cumbrian cattleshed.

Amulet with evil eye stones and Tudor horseshoe, the top lot at £550

It was part of a collection amassed by John Glanfield who had immersed himself in items from the world of farming and rural bygones for nearly 40 years, after helping a friend set up the Museum of Rural Life in Tilford near Farnham.

The amulet’s price outstripped the estimate of £80-£120 and reflected the growing market for folk art and rural bygones. Superstition held that the natural hole or ‘evil eye’ warded off witches.

Mr Glanfield, the vendor, attributed its success to its exceptional rarity coupled with its symbolic significance.

Horn artefacts are of particular interest to folk art enthusiasts and the sale saw a finely-decorated grit and grease horn, initialled EL and dated 1786, make £320, more than double its low estimate.

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GRAHAM BUDD, SOTHEBY’S

Sports specialist Graham Budd struck gold in his latest sale by setting an Olympic torch auction record.

A Helsinki 1952 Olympic Games torch sold for £420,000, setting a house record for the saleroom. Estimated at £300,000400,000, it was bought by the Saracens rugby club chairman Nigel Wray (owner of a private collection of sporting memorabilia, the Priory Collection).

Budd, who holds his sales at Sotheby’s New Bond Street, said: “This was the only torch he was missing for the summer (first torch Berlin 1936) and winter (first torch Oslo 1952) games. So he is now 100 percent complete.”

The vendor was a continental private collector.

The price Wray paid beat the record set by another Helsinki 1952 torch sold for €290,000 (£263,635) at Paris auctioneers Bernard Vassy et Philippe Jalenques in February 2011.

The Helsinki Olympic torch set a house record