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Auctioneers are promising jam today, jam tomorrow as an antique marmalade maker comes to a sale with a definite metallic feeling.
The Victorian marmalade maker, by Fallows & Bate Ltd of Manchester (estimate £20 to £30), is just one of a number of quirky metalware tools and implements being offered for sale.
One of the rarer items – and surely a candidate for a Guess the Mystery Object game – is a Pratts Patent brass ‘Cat’ plate warmer, circa 1840. Looking more like the Soviet satellite Sputnik than a Cat, the trivet should achieve between £80 and £120.
Most people need a trepanning set like they need a hole in the head
There are dozens of surgical, veterinary and agricultural implements. A set of five surgeon’s trepanning drills manufactured by Down Bros in 1874, and carrying an estimate of £50 to £80, will be sought after for their curiosity value rather than any practical use – after all, most people need a trepanning set like they need a hole in the head.
Back to the practical are a set of three Victorian cast iron lamp posts and lanterns, which are sure to brighten up the auction. The green painted street lamps will be sold separately with an estimate of £100 to £150 each.
Hitting the right note with audio enthusiasts, meanwhile, is a pair of Quad electrostatic loudspeakers in copper finish, commanding an estimate of £100 to £150.
Harking back to the heyday of hi-fi – during which the challenge for manufacturers was to produce the purest sound, rather than to cram as many tracks as possible onto a mobile phone – the 35-inch floor-mounted speakers were designed to dominate the living room of the 1960s, in the way that our television sets do today.
Fifty years ago the Quad ESL 57 was the bees-knees in speakers – designed and manufactured in Britain and the first to use electrostatic technology to produce the clearest sound available.
In 2000, Hi-Fi News voted the speaker “the greatest hi-fi product of all time,” and Quad are still making high-end audio equipment today.
Continuing the proud British tradition of manufacturing and innovation, the auctioneers are also delighted to offer for sale a circa 1973 Vauxhall Viva.
With its American-influenced design – narrow horizontal rear lamp clusters, flat dashboard with a letterbox-style speedometer, and a pronounced mid bonnet hump – the Viva was one of the best-selling cars of the 1960s and 70s, racking up sales of over 1.5 million.
Its production also marked the autumn of the British car industry. The Viva was the last Vauxhall to be designed and built in the UK – all future Vauxhalls would be re-badged Opels from the parent General Motors stable.
This two-door version has a 1256cc engine, four-speed gearbox and comes in almond with gold body stripes.
Incredibly it has just 30,887 miles on the clock – an average of around 750 miles for every year of its life. It carries an auctioneer’s estimate of £200 to £300.
The auction will be held on Friday, August 10 at Moore Allen & Innocent in Cirencester. For a full auction catalogue, log on to www.mooreallen.co.uk