Wessex Auction Rooms - Auction Review
Shall we talk about nostalgia?
When it comes to a person parting with their pounds, one thing that is certain to have an influence is the pull of nostalgia on ones heart strings. When I am filming Bargain Hunt at fairs around the country, trying to guide the reds or the blues on potential profits I often find my expertise overruled by a cry of ‘I used to have one of those when I was a child’, or ‘I remember my parents having one of these’ and that deep rooted feeling inside can sometimes be stronger than any words of advice that I might have to offer the teams. Nostalgia sells!
We all know that my passion is for toys and whilst I am a sucker for a lovely boxed 1950s Dinky Gift Set, or a 1960s Mamod Traction engine, nothing gets my juices flowing more than the toys of my own youth. Subbuteo, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, MASK, Masters Of The Universe, Sonic The Hedgehog, Super Mario… the list goes on- and these things are hot property in todays collectors market. We are right in the midst of the cyclical collecting model where men and women of my age who gave away their toys (or their parents gave them away when we moved out) now get that nostalgic pull and are ready to spend big to recapture that feeling they felt when they were kids.
Some recent highlights in our specialist toy auction included a Nintendo Game & Watch Micro Vs System Donkey Kong 3 handheld game with its original box from the mid-eighties which sold for £160 to a bidder that was in his mid-40s and had owned the game himself back in the day and had sold it 20 years ago for just £5!
Along the same lines of retro video games was a group of mainly 1990s Nintendo Gameboy games that sold to an online bidder in France for £1600 after some fierce bidding from the room and the internet. The games were discovered in a loft by the parents of a lady in her late 30s, and when they asked if she still wanted them, they were told “just get rid of them, they’re probably worth nothing without the Gameboy to play them on”
I asked the successful bidder of a group of kit-built O Guage model railway why he was willing to spend a whopping £12,280 on the lot, and he told me “It was almost the same as the collection my father had… I couldn’t not win it!”
Now let’s talk about the biggest nostalgia buzz in the news right now… coming just two weeks after my business partner and vinyl specialist Martin Hughes was filming a BBC TV feature about 1990s vinyl records and the 30th anniversary of Britpop music – Liam and Noel Gallagher announced that Oasis are reforming for a number of stadium shows in 2025!By the time the Britpop phenomenon was sweeping the nation most people had changed their listening habits from vinyl records to CDs and very few people were purchasing music on the 12” format. In fact, almost any vinyl album released after 1993 that falls into the rock or pop category is most likely worth more now than it cost at the time.
Our most recent specialist vinyl record auctions have seen some fantastic examples of the current demand for 1990s records. A copy of the second album released by Oasis (What’s The Story) Morning Glory ? signed to the front by Noel Gallagher and drummer Alan White sold for an impressive £413, whilst an original first pressing of their debut album Definitely Maybe sold for £200… and it still had the £10.99 price label to the front of the sleeve, so not a bad investment for the seller who said they had only played it once because it wasn’t really their cup of tea.Not to be outdone by their ninety’s rivals, the Britpop battle was certainly in full swing when a lot of three albums by the band Blur went under the hammer and sold to a very determined phone bidder for just over £400.
Of course, if you know anything about Oasis you will know that they were often accused of stealing ideas from The Beatles, but a quick scan of our auction results will leave you in no doubt as to which band are top of the pops! The star of the show as an original mono pressing of The Beatles’ debut album, Please Please Me in lovely condition that attracted bids from around the world online and also telephone bids in our room. The first pressings are identifiable by the distinctive gold coloured lettering on the labels, replaced very shortly after release by the more commonly seen yellow Parlophone labels. This copy was eventually sold for to an Amerian collector for a premium inclusive £1155.Demand for vinyl records is forever increasing and Martin is currently consigning for his October and December specialist auctions of records and memorabilia.
I am just a couple of weeks away from taking to the rostrum again for my seventh specialist toy auction of the year and it includes some lovely items from every era of toy collecting. More on that next month!
Wessex Auction Rooms are always consigning for forthcoming auctions and welcome entries Mon-Fri 9-5 at our auction rooms just off J17 of the M4 (Chippenham) with no appointment necessary, or on an appointment basis at our central Bath office, or at your home. Contact the team on 01249 720888 or email enquiries@wessexauctionrooms.co.uk