Printable version
Email this to a Friend
Nelson still a winner 200 years on
01 Jan 2006
More than £9m was spent in three glittering showcase sales held by the big three London auction houses. Experts reckon additional activity in regional sale rooms and on e-Bay contributed to a total market conservatively estimated at £20m, including - so some cynics say - enough locks of Nelson's hair to stuff a Chesterfield three-piece suite.
By the final reckoning the big three London auction houses had offered over 1200 items in a bicentennial bonanza that saw prices of some artefacts soar past all market expectations.
The sale also recorded the highest individual price, with £400,000 paid by an anonymous bidder for the Victory Watch seen here. It was presented to Nelson in August 1805 by officers of HMS Victory.
The watch had only been expected to make £200,000£300,000.
