'Cats' Eyes' Cunningham Update

A little while ago, I blogged about Spink's  Bentley Priory Battle of Britain Trust Appeal Charity Auction.

Group Capt Cunningham's medal group

Among other things I said that the estimate of £140,000 for John ‘Cat’s Eyes’ Cunningham group 'is likely to be an under-estimate'.  Well, the sale was today and the lot fetched £320,000 (after extras, that'll be a total of £396,800).  That's an eye-watering sum of course, but it just confirms that the auctioneers' estimate was woeful.  They must have know (as we did) that the real result would be much more.  Why do they do this?  Some claim that it's a 'teaser', pulling punters in - but why tell someone they can buy something for much less that you know you want them to pay?  The real reason, I suspect, are the headlines in tomorrow's papers - 'medals sell for twice estimate'.

Anyway, as I said in the original blog, both the hammer price and the commission fees from this lot are going to charity.  So, that's a result then.