Mantiques auction a big success
All 40 rare firemen's helmets went but a locomotive nameplate capped the lot as more than £100,000 was spent at an auction.
Internet bids came from as far away as New Zealand, the Middle East and America when 630 items went under the hammer at Fieldings Auctioneers in Mill Race Lane, Stourbridge on Saturday.
Around 200 people - some travelling from South Wales, the West Country and Norfolk - attended in person while 500 more registered to bid via the internet from around the world.
"It was a phenomenal success," declared Mark Hannam, who handled the sale of 300 of the lots with the remainder being split between colleagues.
It was the firm's annual Mantiques auction, so called because it featured items most likely to appeal to men.
The fire service helmets - all from the 19th and 20th Century - each fetched between £200 and £700, depending on the rarity and brigade they came from.
They were made from leather, brass or chrome with several coming from the fire service at the former Marsh and Baxter meat factory in Brierley Hill. There was even one from the Windsor Castle fire brigade.
A 450-strong collection of tampers, used to damp down the tobacco in a pipe, were all sold after being broken into 44 separate lots, with six strong sets fetching around £300.
But one with a 'peep show' of an Edwardian getting undressed for a bath visible through a tiny hole in the top of the implement was sold for £150.
A set of 20 silent movie posters was snapped up by a collector in America and while 24 coins commemorating Royal events cost a bidder in the Middle East £700.
Over 90 per cent of the lots sold with just shipping posters - a big hit last year - failing to find anybody with a suitable bid this time.
A medal awarded to Pte S Popple 2/24th foot who was wounded in the battle of IsandIwana during the Zulu wars on the 22nd January 1879 topped £4,000 but the star of the show was the nameplate of Sir Arthur Yorke, a Bulldog class Great Western steam locomotive built in 1906 and withdrawn in 1949. It went for £4,500.
A signed pair of Muhammad Ali gloves went for £900.
They were signed by the boxing legend at a charity auction in Perry Barr in 1983 and were sold by Peter Plevey, 73, of Kinver, who paid £500 for the gloves which were signed in front of him.
Mr Hannam concluded: "It was one of our most successful auctions of its kind and showed the power of the internet. I was constantly saying things like there are three bidders on line, one in England, another in Ireland and the third in New Zealand."
