Where there’s brass there’s, well, brass…

ENTHUSIASM for horse brasses has not waned – not if the results of Moore Allen & Innocent’s first antiques auction of 2017 are anything to go by.

Sold over three lots, a large collection of horse brasses achieved combined hammer prices totalling nearly £3,500 at the Cirencester auction on Friday, January 6 – well in excess of the expected £600 to £900.

A collection of 25 leather martingale straps and 160 horse brasses achieved the top price of the day: £1,800.

The lot included a rare horse brass actually cast in lead, featuring an image of Neptune on one side and two bears dancing around a pole on the reverse, together with brasses commemorating the 1851 Crystal palace Great Exhibition, Abraham Lincoln, the GW&LMS Railway, and GWR.

The second lot of brasses – with 12 martingales approximately 75 brasses – took the number two spot, with a winning bid of £1,200, while third lot of 17 martingales and 95 brasses celebrating the diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria, Chipperfields Circus, and railway companies including LMS, GWR&LM&SR and LNER achieved £440 – enough to put it in the top 10.

Horse brasses became popular in the mid 19th century as decoration for the harnesses of shire and parade horses. By the 1880s they were being produced for the collectors market and sold as souvenirs. Today, collecting remains popular, and the National Horse Brass Society of England has members around the world.

There was something of a theme of large mammals running through the auction. The third highest lot price of the day was achieved by a pair of 29cm tall Moser of Karlsbad amber glass baluster shaped vases gilt, decorated in relief with elephants among palm trees, which achieved £780, while a pair of Royal Worcester two handled vases decorated with panels of cattle by water's edge by James Stinton, dating from 1903 and measuring 25.5cm tall, sold for £600.

And, tellingly for the first sale after the new year festivities, a large suite of Waterford Crystal glasses – including wine and liquor glasses, champagne saucers and tumblers – made £550; just over the £300 to £500 estimate.

Elsewhere, the list of top sellers was dominated by furniture. A 19th Century mahogany and rosewood cross banded breakfast table achieved £600, while a shabby 19th Century oak dresser, the canopy top over two shelves upon a base of three drawers and three cupboard doors, made £440, despite wormholes and splits to the back board and shelves.

A smart 19th Century mahogany linen press chest made £440, while a Victorian mahogany pedestal desk in the Adam taste by Howard & Sons with green leather tooled inset top sold for £400.

And three 19th Century Globe-Wernicke bookcases – offered for sale with an estimate of £150 to £200 a piece – achieved £360, £300 and £280 respectively.

TV cameras will be rolling during the next auction, on Friday 27 January, as David Dickinson brings finds from his recent visit to Newport for ITV’s Real Deal. For a full auction catalogue, log on to www.mooreallen.co.uk