There is a good market for gaming machines, automata and enamel signs, some of which could be gathering dust in outhouses and garages around Ireland.
Items in an auction at Christie's, London, next Thursday, include tools, sewing machines, typewriters, telephones and old gramophones. Estimates in the auction range from £300 to £12,000 sterling.
Mr Nick Hawkins, a specialist in the collectors' department at Christie's, said there was a "very good market" for such items. Early musical boxes sell well, as do tools and enamel signs from the 1920s and 1930s.
Tools in the forthcoming auction include two metal planes, estimated at £350-£400, a cabinetmaker's tool chest, expected to fetch £300-£500, and an 1815 lathe with guide prices of £1,000-£1,500.
A collection of rules and calipers is estimated at £400-£600, various calculating rules and calculators could fetch £300-£600 each, while sewing machines range from £200-£400 each. An 1867 Britannia Davenport sewing machine has a guide price of £1,400-£1,800.
Highlights of the auction include a four-rotor enigma enciphering machine in an oak case. It is believed the machine was supplied to a Scandinavian businessman for communicating with the Third Reich. Its near pristine condition suggests it wasn't often used. (Estimate: £8,000-£12,000.)
Another highlight of the auction is a musical carousel automaton. The 1890 carousel has painted metal horses and riders with all-bisque dolls in a glazed hexagonal case on a walnut base. It plays six airs and has a coin mechanism. (Estimate: £7,000-£10,000.)
A beautiful singing bird box in tortoiseshell case with a rear compartment, the lid enamelled with an Alpine river landscape on the outside and a spray of flowers internally, is estimated at £3,000-£4,000. The bird has coloured plumage and moving head, beak, wings and tail.
A John Wayne bandit, the style inspired by US folk artist Frank Polk during the 1950s, has a gun arm lever and moulded cowboy costume and gun holsters. Standing 1.89 metres high, it is estimated at £1,000-£1,500. A Delong Indian bandit, the carved and painted figure with Rol-A-Top style three-reel bandit forming the torso, is expected to go for £1,800-£2,000.
A 1930s football machine with 23 articulated players in a green-painted metal case, lions paw feet and plaque signed Bollands Automatic Machines is valued at £2,000-£3,000.
Meanwhile, a rare Automatic Sports Company cricket match No 568 with two articulated players in a cast-iron case, patented in 1899, is expected to make £3,000-£5,000.
The cast-iron case forms a pavilion with a cast-tiled roof supported by four pillars. The maker's enamel plaque reads: "The Cricket Match, Your penny returned every time the ball goes down any hole marked boundary. To obtain ball place penny in slot and press handle gently. Then play as you please. This machine is the property of the British Automatic Co Ltd, 14 Apollo Street, London EC."
Enamel signs and advertising material can also be valuable, as witnessed by the forthcoming auction. Two Guinness signs (51x36cm) reading "Guinness for strength", one showing a tree being felled, the other of a farmer pulling a cart with the horse in the cart, are estimated at £200-£300.
A raised Pepsi-Cola bottle-top design, 48cm in diameter, is expected to go for £200-£300. An AA Hotel swinging sign, double-sided, with black logo and lettering on a yellow background, carries the same estimate.
Moving statues - the verifiable, non-miraculous kind - also feature. A Roullet et Decamps musical automaton of a saint holding a Christ child is estimated at £3,000-£5,000. The papiermache head, brown glass eyes and tonsured wig plays one air, turns his head, blinks and raises the child with his right arm.
jmarms@irish-times.ie
