Issue 42 summer 24 web - Flipbook - Page 112
A Valuer’s Life
To be (or not to be)
a specialist
by Andrew Acquier, FRICS
Well, it’s finally happened. I’ve been joking for years about
how no-one would have a Picasso in the toilet and, two
weeks ago, in a house in North London, there it was. Admittedly, not a Blue Period oil or ‘Guernica’, but a
coloured pencil drawing from the 1960s of bulls and bullfighters, worth about £50,000 at auction. This was my
client’s response when I told him: “Oh, the Picasso. Yes,
we’ve had that for years. But it’s not worth much, is it?
Nanny used to have it in her bedroom.” At least I
preferred it to the Salvador Dalis scattered through the
rest of the house.
me to add to the fair resolution of a relationship split without that element needing to be fought in court and I gain
much satisfaction from knowing that this works.
Rock ‘n Roll Memorabilia
This is a fascinating area in which I have specialised for
many years. I was working at Bonhams in the late 1970s
when they were the very first saleroom, in the UK at least,
to have a sale just covering this interest. I remember that
it included a gold disc awarded to Mick Taylor, the lead
guitarist of the Rolling Stones from 1969 to 1974, for ‘It’s
Only Rock ‘n Roll’ - I think it made £220 - and an
acoustic guitar purported to have belonged to John
Lennon. This guitar subsequently appeared in a number
of auctions before it was finally agreed that it had no such
provenance.
Yes, I am lucky - I see enough art in the course of my work
to realise that owning the Van Gogh I would love to have
over the fireplace would mean that insurers would insist
on bars at the windows, pressure pads on the stairs and
heaven knows what else. So having a £10 million painting
in the house would always be a non-starter for me,
however well off. Why choose to be tied to one possession
so that you fear losing it? Life is too short. So being able
to handle art without owning it is not only a privilege, but
also means that I don’t feel the need to possess it.
Consequently what I own I comfortably shape around
what I can afford.
Since then the market has grown enormously, led by the
Beatles, including autographs, instruments, clothing and
early vinyl. Amongst areas with the highest values are
original hand-written lyrics. Those for ‘A Day in the Life’
off Sergeant Pepper sold in 1992 for £56,600 at Sotheby’s
and again in 2010 for $1.2 million. The drum skin from
the bass drum with the famous drop T of ‘Beatles’ used
on the group’s first US TV appearance on the Ed Sullivan
Show on February 9th 1964 sold in 1994 at Sotheby’s for
$44,000 without its complete provenance being known.
The buyer then carried out extensive research over a number of years and it was resold at Julien’s in Beverley Hills in
November 2015 for $2.19 million. George Michael paid
£1.67 million for the Steinway upright piano on which
John Lennon wrote ‘Imagine’ to ensure that it would not
Being an expert witness in the art world means that, as in
all the best jobs, every day is different. The work is mixed
in with insurance, probate and asset work, but the discipline and skill in being, as far as one is able to be, master
of the subject, that is profoundly satisfying. Divorce work
currently seems to be more prevalent than civil or commercial litigation, but the role of Single Joint Expert allows
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