A legal battle is set to ensue where a firm of auctioneers is attempting to claw back a box of jewels and coins worth approximately £100,000 from successful bidder Jennifer Grant. The box was found in Agatha Christie’s mother’s trunk, which Ms Grant had bid for at auction in 2006. She realised that there was a locked box inside but the auctioneers did not have a key to open the box. Ms Grant only recently decided to have the box forced open. She had not bothered to open it before because she thought there was nothing in it.
It is not surprising now that the auction house wants the items returned saying that, as they weren’t catalogued, Ms Grant is not entitled to hold onto them.
Surely part of the thrill of going to auctions for most of us is the possibility of finding something valuable that has been missed? Some of us have actually been lucky enough to purchase a box of mixed lots to find that there are some real treasures buried in there. If the auction house manages to retrieve the box of jewels back from Ms Grant, will this create some sort of precedent where anything not catalogued has to be returned to the auctioneer? If that’s the case, then the contents list of a mixed lot could get very long indeed and this will certainly take a lot of the fun out of going to the auctions. The auctioneers may feel that they have a good case against Ms Grant but they will not win any popularity contests in their attempts to retrieve this box of jewels.
Antique chests and boxes may often hold hidden secrets. Antique dealerships in Preston, Lancashire, Cumbria and across the country hold good stocks of these ever popular, reasonably priced antiques.
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