Kingswinford Ladies Social Circle

The ladies met on June 1, at The Royal British Legion, Kingswinford.

Chairman Sheila Evans welcomed everyone present, including the speaker Alison Snowdon.

Business matters were read, approved and signed.Sheila asked if anyone would like to become a committee member and welcomed Margaret who is willing to serve on the committee.

There was a brief report on the forthcoming trip on September 28, and a thank you letter from last months’ speaker expressing her appreciation for the welcome shown to her.

Our speaker, Alison Snowdon, an auctioneer at a very well known Stourbridge firm

soon displayed her passion for her job. This developed as her childhood was spent in London where she was able to visit the local city museums. Along with her talk

she showed photographs of antiques and told us how their value can rise or fall

overnight, e. g. Princess Diana’s ring made sapphires and cluster rings popular.

She mentioned how items regarded by their owners as worthless often proved to be

valuable. A tray used to display candles and covered in fat proved to be solid gold and fetched £10,000. Car boots can be a great source of revenue if an item bought for a few pence is extremely valuable. A diamond bracelet bought for 50p fetched £6,ooo and a candlestick bought for £1 fetched £100,000. A local man sold a Lowry picture drawn in his boyhood autograph book for £36,000.

This is the dearest Lowry ever sold. Notoriety of an artist will give a painting value or render it worthless. The tennis dress worn in the famous Athena picture was sold for £15,000 and is now displayed in the Wimbledon Museum. Alison found two Limehouse gravy boats and finally showed us a photograph of an “An Old Spice, soap on a rope.”She had not heard of the aftershave or seen this type of soap, which proved how much younger she was than her audience.

A delightful talk enjoyed by her audience, as reflected in the vote of thanks given by

Christobel Groves.

Three ladies won raffle prizes.

The next meeting will be on July 6 at 7.45 pm.