Author: Francesca

Big numbers predicted when two rare number plates go under the hammer!

Posted on June 22, 2018 by - Uncategorized

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There’s a chance to buy a little bit of automotive history later this month when two car number plates go under the hammer.

First up is the rare plate UK6 which was first put in circulation in 1910 only seven years after vehicles were first fitted with the identifying markers.

It has been in private ownership for more than 50 years but is now going under the gavel with an estimate of between £45,000-£50,000, according to Humbert & Ellis Auctioneers, of Northamptonshire.

Jonathan Humbert, from the auction house, said:

“The market in private and cherished number plates is very much on the up. Given our recent success with TAXI, recently sold for £92,000, we have high hopes for this quintessentially British number plate UK6, with both a United Kingdom attribution and a very low single number and such an early and historic plate too.”

For the more internationally-minded, the number plate 1RAN will be offered to the highest bidder, with an estimate of £50,000.
Both items will be featured in the Automobilia, Petroliana and Rare Registration Plates auction – 11am Thursday 28th June

An “extraordinarily rare” 10,000-year-old woolly mammoth tusk has sold at auction.

Posted on April 9, 2018 by - Uncategorized

The 220cm (86.5in) item is said to have been discovered in Siberia in the 19th Century and carved in China.

It was purchased by a private buyer in New York in 2009 and was estimated to sell for up to £40,000 at an auction near Towcester, Northamptonshire.

The lot attracted bidders from around the world, but was bought by a private investor in London.

Humbert & Ellis Auctioneers listed the item as “extraordinarily rare and beautiful”.

Auctioneer Jonathan Humbert said: “This was a fair price for a thing of such utter beauty and we’re delighted with the outcome.

“The more you look, the more you see – it is a most remarkable and thoroughly beautiful piece of art.”

              

It features some 33 individuals figures, all with distinct faces and of Mogul influence, many bearing weapons, together with 20 horses, in an allegorical battle-story setting.

The tusk came from a woolly mammoth, a species which died out about 5,600 years ago, and was roughly the same size as modern African elephants.

It is exempt from the ivory ban, which currently only applies to products produced after 1947.