Last week I was asked to give a lecture to a group called 'The Wealth Enhancement Forum'. This is a peer review group set up to enable newly wealthy individuals to meet up and compare notes, and to have lectures and presentations advising them what to do with their money. This particular group is in Leeds. Corfield Morris was invited to tell them a bit about the delights of owning antiques, art and jewellery. Strangely none of the group had ventured into these areas- they all had expensive cars, nice clothes, and were aspiring to bigger houses, but not yet the finer things in life!
I showed them some pieces from my own collection, and a couple of watches, particularly a 1960's classic Rolex, which they all seemed to covet and thought good value at about £10,000. I then showed them a beautiful little walnut bachelors chest worth about £30,000 which they thought was madness! Anyway I think my talk inspired them to think about investing some of their funds into this fascinating and potentially addictive area.
Having completed my talk, I set off to visit my various dealer freinds in the North, and made one or two discoveries including a great pair of 14" globes illustrated here.
These are in really nice untouched condition, and on lovely mahogany stands, which I think are probably Irish from the unusual shape of the stretchers which support the bottom of the globes. Luckily we have a very good restorer who could deal with the small amount of damage to the papers relatively easily and quickly. The price of the globes as they are is £38,000, which is actually not bad. When restored I think these are worth the best part of double that!
On the way back I dropped into to see the house of a new client- I had met him through the internet, and found him a set of 24 chairs, so it was great to finally be a able to see the house. It is a fabulous early Victorian baronial hall, set in the most delightful private, peaceful, valley, yet only a couple of miles from the M5. The house is shortly to be remodelled but when finished will require a few spectacular pieces which we will help him to find.
