€175,000 worth of antiques sold at Waterford clock auction
An attendee at Ireland's largest ever clock auction weighs up her options of making a bid. Photo by Hugh Dooley.
Around €175,000 worth of antiques were sold at Ireland's largest-ever specialised clock auction, which took place in Waterford City last week at RJ Keighery Antiques.
"You won't get a collection of clocks like this again, ever again in my opinion," Rody Keighery said from the auctioneer's podium.
The auction was the sale of "one of the largest private collections ever seen in this country," RJ Keighery Antiques explained. The owner of the collection was not disclosed, but it has been confirmed to be "the contents of one private single-story estate, which is a lifetime collection of nearly 300 clocks".
As clock bells intermittently emitted their familiar rings as the hours changed throughout the auction, a number of lots sold for eye-watering prices.
A high-quality Patek Philippe ladies' watch with wolf tooth winding and lever set hands made in 1887 went to hammer at €6,000. Sold with its original receipt, the watch was custom-made for a client, Mary A. Lovering, with the inscription showing it was a gift from her father - the Patek Philippe timepiece was certain to be a hit at auction.
"I'm selling to the internet if I don't hear or see any more bids," ran the auctioneer's call during the auction of the beautiful Georgian Irish grandfather clock made by Thomas Cahill of Waterford. Built circa 1770, the mahogany cross-banded case by the notable Déise man went to hammer at €5,200 on the day and stirred significant interest from those in attendance.
The third biggest sale of the day was an antique mahogany Antrim grandfather clock by William Kennedy, which went to hammer at €4,500 as the 60th lot of the day. The starting auction price of the grandfather clock was estimated at €400-600 but was carried higher by competitive bidding in the room and online.
Among the other high-hammer items were an original Arklow Pottery Guinness toucan lamp (€2,100), a collection of retro and modern watches (€1,700) and a stunning 'Ploughman' £10 Currency Commission Consolidated bank note bearing the inscription 2-10-31 - selling at €3,600 (or £3,043), the note was worth 30,334% its face value nearly 100 years ago!
"You'd be surprised the number of people in Ireland that are fascinated by clocks," auctioneer Rody Keighery said to the Waterford News & Star.
"I suppose it's like an engine, it's the internal workings that people like. Fiddling with them, getting a broken clock working again, it's exciting.
"We got 300 clocks from one estate, that's most unusual! We were told there was a collection of clocks to be auctioned but we never expected 300 in the one house! We were delighted to get to auction the collection and worked hard at it, set it up and the results are there!"
Mr Keighery explained that there has been significant interest in the auction nationally and also across the world.
"We do auctions every six weeks, in which we sell house contents but we've never done a clock auction before. It's the only one in Ireland, as far as I know, there have been other auctions, which have also included 50 or 60 clocks but never 300 clocks, and 31 grandfather clocks - which is amazing.
"It's not many auction rooms that could show all the clocks," Rody Keighery explained, "we put a lot of effort into doing that, which is important from the vendor's point of view. They put their faith in us so we are doing our best for them."
