In June, as ever, nameplates took the big money – that of the 145 Squadron from a Southern Railway 4-6-2 Light Pacific Battle of Britain class loco built in 1948 and cut up in 1968, took £32,200 and Cardigan Castle, carried by the GWR Castle Class 4-6-0 loco built in Swindon in 1925, and cut up 38 years and 1,812,341 miles later, took £21,100. Such is the pressure on nameplate prices that modern traction plates are now fetching big money. Here Sea King, carried by a diesel electric BoBo type built in 1960 but only named in 1991 before being withdrawn in 1997, sold for £4400.
Mr Wright described some of the other prices as “frankly astounding”. A Manning Wardles worksplate from a Lynton & Barnstaple engine brought £8200, another from a Highland Railway loco of 1874 made £7100 and among the station tokens one for Knaresborough took £3400 and another for St Andrews made £2400.
Associated items also sold well, with examples including a Cornish Riviera poster for £2200; a Master Cutler glass sign at £2100, a Manchester & Leeds Railway book for £1060 and a GWR silver-plated cheese dish at £500.
Sheffield Railwayana Auctions, June 16 No buyer’s premium
Where railways run at happy profit
THE wheels may be coming off RailTrack and rail shares plunging generally, but in the older parallel world of steam things could hardly be better. Looking at sales figures of 544 lots getting away out of 550 offered and a total of £383,000 on June 16 at Sheffield Railwayana Auctions, other auctioneers can only envy Ian Wright’s decision some years ago to specialise in railwayana.
