22nd August 2011

The Stick of Rock versus the Mary Glare 

The auction agent – friend or foe ?

At the front of each Grosvenor auction and at other important sales across the country may be found two mysterious figures, a white-haired lady and a dark haired (no, he really does not dye it) gentleman calmly going about their business. These are the country’s two leading auction agents, Mary Weeks and Tony Lancaster. 

Why at the front ? Simply because there is nowhere better to both be first to catch the auctioneer’s eye and at the same time to intimidate him into keeping up the pace of selling. Everyone has trains to catch, as I am regularly reminded.

"Mary Weeks"

There is one problem with this choice of seating and that is how to keep an eye on whoever might put up a challenge once the bidding starts. Rumour has it that Mary’s neck can turn through an entire 360 degrees and once fixed by the Mary Glare I have seen grown men, toughened stamp dealers or prominent collectors, quail and drop their bidding paddle when transfixed by it.

We have a special room on Grosvenor on sale days ready for those who may need to sit quietly to recover.

The quieter presence is Tony Lancaster whose gentlemanly demeanour hides a dry wit. Tony’s mother was the celebrated ‘Bobbie’ Lancaster, with whom Mary also once worked. Bobbie is fondly remembered and was a very supportive character. For my own sake I will always be grateful for the encouraging report that she wrote in the stamp press of my first outing as a rookie auctioneer in 1985. Mind you, I think that in later times she sometimes mistook me for Christopher Harmer.

She certainly had a wicked streak. In Tony’s youth she once sent her son to a fancy dress event wrapped entirely in cellophane – as a stick of rock!

"Tony Lancaster (resting)"

They say that you should never buy a 1964 Forth Road Bridge presentation pack unless it is warped and buckled by the cellophane in which it was wrapped. Notoriously cellophane contracts over time and if your presentation pack from that period lies flat you should be very suspicious of it.

 Could his early experience even today explain the slightly squeezed or pained expression that we see sometimes cross the face of Mr Lancaster ? Or is he picking up some of the reflected radiation from the Mary Glare ?

Well, that about wraps it up for this week. .

JG