Cash in the attic
Could a dusty painting or scruffy silver spoon found in the attic yield a windfall for your family? Marie Kelly talks to two Irish auction houses about some surprising success stories.
Late last year, a rare typescript of the French novella The Little Prince featuring the first written appearance of the famous line, “anything essential is invisible to the eye”, went up for auction at a price of $1.25 million at the Abu Dhabi Art Festival. This is interesting not because the item was unearthed from a cobwebbed corner of a Parisian loft – it was in a private collection – but because for anybody hoping to find cash in their attic, the iconic phrase is one worth bearing in mind.
As Philip Sheppard, auctioneer at Sheppard’s Irish Auction House in Co Laois, remarks, “A pair of old boots are worth nothing, unless they were pulled on by Patrick Pearse on Easter Monday. Then they take on an enormous significance.” Provenance is hugely important, he explains, and it is rarely obvious to the naked eye. He cites the real-life example of a pair of paintings of ships that came to his attention last year, which appeared fairly benign at first. “I did some research and I learned that the ships were, in fact, owned by a family in Limerick and were used as coffin ships during the Great Famine. One of them got stuck in the middle of the ocean and the crew cannibalized the cabin boys. All of this information was documented,” he explains. “Suddenly a nice picture of a sailing ship became a whole lot more.”
Every January, Sheppard’s holds a Gems in the Attic auction where items from the attics, storerooms and stables of important country houses, which didn’t sell at the original contents sales, are auctioned off. “They’re not terribly important sales, but they’re frightfully interesting,” he says. “We wind up with a whole cross-section of different items that have survived for different reasons.”
Antiques and auctioneering is all Sheppard has ever known. Now 70, he started his career at the age of 15 at the namesake auction house founded by his uncle in the late 1940s, beginning as a porter holding up each of the for-sale items to potential bidders. “Then I’d bring pieces out to the car for Mr So and So for a tip of five or ten shillings,” he says. “You learn a lot about antiques by loading up items from big country houses. The physical handling of the piece teaches you so much,” he explains.
Sheppard’s has the accolade of having sold the most expensive art object ever in Ireland at €1.2 million in November 2020. The piece of Chinese porcelain dated from the reign of Yongzheng (1722 to 1735), the fifth emperor of the Qing dynasty, and while most Chinese ceramics won’t reach a seven-figure hammer price, they’re always worth paying attention to, says Sheppard. Another fortunate family Sheppard worked with some years ago earned several million euro selling a collection of what they believed were inconsequential Asian ceramics gathered over a lifetime by two late aunts.
Amy McNamara, an associate director at Adam’s on Dublin’s Stephen’s Green, has a similarly inspiring story. While doing a general valuation of a house a few years ago, a colleague of hers spotted an Indian bowl under a table. “The client hadn’t thought anything of it, but my colleague liked it and thought the workmanship was really lovely.” This bowl, initially dismissed by the homeowners, made them €30,000 at auction. “These stories are rare,” admits McNamara, “but they’re exciting.”
They’re exciting and they’re tantalising and the appetite to buy at auction houses has been growing steadily since Covid sent everybody shopping online and lockdown boredom pushed people out of their retail comfort zones and onto auction house websites. Every three months, Adam’s holds what it calls warehouse sales, no-reserve auctions at which any item that is bid on will be sold, and McNamara says they’re extremely popular; its January warehouse sale achieved a sale rate of 96%. “Our average sale rate is pretty good at 80-85%, but above 90% is extremely high.”
One fortunate family Sheppard worked with earned several million euro selling a collection of what they believed were inconsequential Asian ceramics gathered over a lifetime by two late aunts.
The most sought-after items at these sales and its regular At Home auctions are hallway mirrors, five-plank pine kitchen tables as people buy into the rustic farmhouse trend, 1920s Danish furniture, leather button-back Chesterfield sofas and pairs of compact side cabinets suitable for smaller living spaces. “Painted furniture with distressed finishes also flies,” McNamara says.
Sheppard agrees that small pieces of furniture, which will work in a smart apartment in New York, London or Hong Kong, sell extremely well. “Lifestyles have changed and people no longer have room for big book shelves or fancy dining room tables. People mostly eat in their kitchens these days at those big beached whales called kitchen islands. Form definitely follows function.”
Beyond furniture, McNamara says it’s items that make a home interesting – conversation pieces – that are most popular. A White Star Champagne cigarette compendium, which had a two-part body in the form of a Moet & Chandon Champagne bottle, with a top half that lifted to reveal gilt brass cigarette holders for 25 cigarettes, went viral on social media when McNamara posted it. “It was given a reserve estimate of between €100-€200, but it sold for €460. It was so novel and people are always looking for something different.”
Pieces of silver are some of the most common items McNamara finds in attics and they can have real value. “A lot of people dismiss silver, but the metal price of silver and gold is very high right now. Just make sure that what you have is not silver-plated,” she advises. Sheppard suggests taking notice of any markings on objects. “Somebody brought in a silver ladle last year. Although they’re not ten a penny, they’re not that uncommon either, but this one had the crest of the Kilkenny militia carved into it. Knowing that it was once used at the Kilkenny barracks changes its value, he explains. “It’s no longer just a silver ladle made in 1850 by some guy in Dublin.” Miniature portraits are frequently found in Irish and English homes, too, often painted on porcelain and ivory. “They’re always super popular; two sold in our December auction for €3,000 each,” says McNamara. “The earlier they date, the better and if they’re signed, better again.”
Of course, many of us will have little or no chance of finding solid silver or historically important paintings in our granny’s or parents’ attic. You might, though, find a Stars Wars figure or two. Last year, Sheppard’s sold a collection of memorabilia from the film franchise for €37,000, with a single item selling for €18,500. Sheppard’s advice to anyone buying the eternally popular toys for their children is to buy two: one to be played with and the other to be carefully stored in the attic. “Each of the pieces that sold was presented in perfect condition in their original boxes,” he explains.
For anyone looking to stay ahead of the curve on auction trends, Shepherd says that publications like House & Garden, Architectural Digest, Florida Design and Southern Living are hugely important and very much drive market trends. McNamara says she’s seeing a renaissance of Nancy Meyers and Nora Ephron-style interiors with lovely antiques, textures and art. “Comfortable living, enjoying your own space and having friends over; that’s what people are buying into,” she says.
Sheppard admits there’s a lot of subjectivity in what they do. “At an auction, I will know everything there is to know about a piece, but really I’ll have no idea what the outcome will be. There may not be a single bid on something I was awake till three o’clock in the morning feeling really excited about. It’s just the market on the day.”
This article was originally published in The Sunday Times Ireland, February 2025