April's New Specialist Advertising Section

28th Mar 2021 by Rita Kearsey

Smiths Auctions in Newent have launched a new specialist section for Advertising Items and Enamel Signs in their April 23rd Antiques sale. It is an extremely popular collecting area at present and of course it is important to keep up to date with current trends. Some traditional collecting areas have become less attractive in recent years such as scientific instruments, clocks and dolls, whilst many others have seen substantial growth. So it is ‘In with the New’ and ‘Out with the Old’ as Smiths make adjustments to their sale calendar to reflect this. Other forthcoming collectables sections to look out for include Stamps, Coins, Postcards and 20th Century Design - all of which are selling extremely well in the current market.

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Auction Anecdote March 2021

22nd Mar 2021 by Rita Kearsey

Despite the lockdown it has been a remarkably busy few weeks as we are now heading towards our March Antiques and Collectables sale. In fact, we have had so many entries we have had to turn it into a two-day sale, or we would have still been selling at midnight! With all these interesting and exciting items in the sale it has been hard for me to choose what to talk about this time. In particular we have had a large number of fine jewellery entries which (some of you may have noticed) I am always very enthusiastic about. I am hoping lots of people will be looking for some ‘pick me up treats’ after this rather ‘testing’ period of our lives.

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Auction Anecdote January 21

11th Jan 2021 by Rita Kearsey

At Smiths Auctions in Newent, we had hoped that our January antiques and collectables auction would prove to be early enough after Christmas to escape the almost inevitable third national lockdown. However of course, this could not have been further from the truth, and the two-day sale on the 7th & 8th January had to be held without any public viewing and behind closed doors. Buyers have however now become used the ‘online only’ buying format and even the lack of viewing seems to be no deterrent to the current frenzy of lockdown buying.

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Auction Anecdote: Dec '20

4th Dec 2020 by Jordan Thomas

Well it has certainly been a year like no other at Smiths Auctions as we have tried to steer our way through all the logistical challenges thrown at us by the Corona virus. It has been a bit of a brain teaser at times trying to work out all the ins and outs of running an auction as the situation has been constantly changing around us. It seems in this latest lockdown salerooms have all adopted quite different strategies with some closing down altogether whilst others have worked around the challenges and soldiered on with exactly the same sale schedule. At Smiths we had already planned to hold the 6th November as an online only sale since the pandemic was obviously on the rise again. We were incredibly lucky to be able to hold viewings by appointment for those who wished to come on the Tuesday and Wednesday before the lockdown on the Thursday.

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Auction Anecdote: Nov '20

1st Jan 2020 by Easy Live

Since Smiths Auctions have recently invested in a fancy new back office computer system it has been a rather stressful few weeks for me and the team as we have worked long hours trying to get our heads round a completely different way of doing things. However, it all worked like a dream on sale day and we are enjoying many of the new features and flexibility the improved system can offer us. All this has been going on against the backdrop of an ‘ever increasing’ flow of entries for the sales as clients are venturing out and bringing us the results of many a ‘Lockdown Clear Out’

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