Saturday 6th February

Well... today has been a first for me.

I've been to an auction.
And yes, I did keep my hands firmly within my pockets!

If you want to find the auction room on the internet, it's at www.scotlandstreasures.co.uk - the venue was Taylor's Auction Rooms in Montrose.

And well, yes, there were some treasures there... in amongst the junk!

The auction house is a big, decrepid warehouse, the access to which is through a narrow door - on the other side of which is furniture often piled high with bric a brac, shelves and display cases - you can hardly move through the warren of little alleyways that lead you onto the area where the auction takes place as you constantly come across traffic jams as people stop to investigate or stand watching the proceedings from a distance or try to squeeze past others coming the opposite direction!

The day started with the paintings - some getting up as far as, on average, four or five hundred pounds.

Mind you, I'd keep my eye open for anything by J McIntosh Patrick because his paintings were going for thousands. One of them, 'An Angus Farm' went for £8000!!

The other name to look for would be James Watterstone Herald - his painting didn't make as much as J McIntosh Patrick's but a couple of thousand isn't to be sneezed at!

I checked these guys out on the internet and they're both dead - suppose that partly explains why their paintings are worth so much.
Not my style :(

Next up was the porcelain and again, I made note of what sold - pottery plates and vases by Walter Moorcroft were flyinying out for anything between £200 and £600 pounds.




I've decided you have to look for the stamp on the bottom and a blue or green signature to see if they are genuine - couldn't decide which signature was more valuable, maybe neither, maybe they just indicated a period of time - anyway they were always mentioned in the catalogue if they were there!

You see you learn something new everyday :)

And I've decided I quite like 'Satsuma' vases. Maura bought one, admittedly with a crack and a chip for £18!

These are examples of satsuma vases but they look nothing like the one that Maura bought. Although the one I saw and liked was not disimilar to the larger ones in the picture.

We left before the furniture went up for auction which was a bit of a disappointment - not that I was going to buy anything - even though I saw some really nice chests of drawers and a dressing table which I really liked - all solid wood.
We left because we'd been sitting there for hours and were beginning to feel a little numb!!

You sit, by the way, on the chairs that are going to be auctioned that day - maybe that's why they put them up for aution last.

I saw folk sitting on diningroom chairs, sofas and armchairs. There were a couple of chaise longue too which I quite fancied having a wee shot of, but two fellas had already nabbed them by the time we got there.

You'd really need to leave the chairs to the end when you think about it, wouldn't you. Otherwise folk would be coming over in the middle of the auction and ask you to get off their chair, "Excuse me, I've just bought that chair, do you mind?"

I forgot to hand in my number as I was leaving and the folk at the auction know who had what number because you have to fill in a wee card when you arrive. D'you think I'll get a phone call asking me to return card number 779?