This was just like the old times when the sleeper known to the saleroom - a lot which has gone unrecognised when offered for sale but which sells for a lot more money when a buyer discovers it to be more valuable - were keenly sought, writes Terry Ingram.
The clutter which dominated the 665 lot sale was a different matter. It sold, but often at clearance prices.
The sleepers sold for up to 10 times their estimate, the clutter for as little as one tenth with even the local Chinese community cutting back.
The unexpected successes were enough to enable the auction house to earn a near estimate $180,000 plus 17.6 per cent buyers premium while clearing the decks of unwanted material.
The sale was held in Terra Nova, 46 Jeffreys Street, Kirribilli, one of the few terrace houses remaining around the Harbour Bridge.
The sleepers were a Renoir (yes, a Renoir!), a Mannerist drawing (correct!) and a colonial portrait.
Typically a Chinese porcelain puce glazed wine cup sold for $35 against an estimate of $100 to $150).
The bids on the lower priced lots from the 120 people tightly packed in the room were accepted helping produce a clearance rate of 98 per cent.
Auctioneer Gina Lugosi said the prices for what turned out to be the most chased lots were helped by the Internet exposure. They all went to anonymous bidders on the phone.
The portrait (a watercolour) went (reportedly) to a known Australiana buyer, the drawing to a buyer on the phone from Paris who was taking it to Madrid and the Renoir, (a lithograph) to someone in South Australia.
From the advertisements for the sale and the catalogue, buyers would not have appreciated the interesting recent history of the material offered. It was merely advertised as a "House Contents Auction."
The owner of the house and vendor, Mr Vincent Johnson, would have been familiar to some for his saleroom fossicking.
He and his wife Vicki ran the B & B Terra Nova House, the contents of which were being offered on site. He had just sold the house itself for $3 million and while he now might not be in any need of money he certainly must have wanted to clear the clutter.
Some in the trade appear to have assumed the antique auction was a multiple vendor offering in a house that had by chance become vacant as so often happens in the industry.
Mr Johnson was the only vendor, Ms Lugosi said.
"House contents" was also only a true description if you include, alongside the decor designed to accommodate the backpackers, the contents of the shed in the back garden which accounted for most of the sale.
The expected departure of Mr Johnson, a Ten Pound Pom who came from Lancaster for a new life with his wife Vicki, to spend half the year in the South of France continues the repositioning of a certain generation which once made the antique market place.
One of the newest phenomenon, Chinese trawling of the market, also ceased despite the presence of members of that community.
At the hammer price of $3000 plus 17.6 per cent buyers premium, a modestly sized antique 35 x 27 cm watercolour of a woman would possibly not have been overpriced had she been British.
Certain similarities to the work of Richard Read Junior in the Mitchell Library are thought to have enticed the buyer to pay way over the $200 to $300 estimate.
A modestly sized (22 x 13 cm) mannerist drawing on paper which Lugosi Auctioneers confidently catalogued as 16th century had an inscription associating it with the 2nd Earl of Spencer's collection.
Spencer lived from 1758 to 1834 and is a big name in English aristocracy.
The buyer certainly thought he was on to something as the drawing of a crowned man with other figures made $9,500 plus BP.
It was certainly a handsome piece of draughtsmanship.
The "Read" was not the only Australiana in the sale which took buyers' fancy as a "Rare Australian Colonial sterling silver bowl made by Lamb of Sydney with hallmarks circa 1840" sold for $1,600 against an estimate of $800 to $1200 despite some possible later added work.
Canteens or bundles of silver cutlery sold for more than estimates but less than melt
But the buyer of one $4000 lot (estimate $2000 to $3000) insisted she was not going to consign them to the furnace but liked them and had a use for them.
Old English pattern still has friends in a market that has become happier with splades.
