Out of ammo

With his war chest depleted and some tempting armour sales on the horizon, Roger Field embarks on a buy-to-sell spending spree to boost his bank balance. But will he prosper?

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HIGH SUMMER AND deep midwinter are fallow months as the auctioneer fraternity disappears en masse to do whatever it is they do when they are not flogging us other folks’ old, unwanted stuff. Conversely, spring and autumn are times of plenty. So much so that my phone pings daily with alerts about upcoming items I'd love to own, some even at affordablelooking estimates.

As a way of chumming the auction waters these alerts work so well that I've just, today, emptied the last of my ‘secret’ auction account spending ammunition. That said, I've also put some recently bought bits into other auctions in the hope of getting back into mouse-clicking internet action ahead of a couple of biannual must-have armsand-armour jamborees. As those who follow this column might have gleaned, while I enjoy collecting early Islamic ceramics, my true passion remains 16th-century (and earlier) European arms and armour. And much of my new strategy of sometimes buying to sell is geared to upgrading my armoury (sorry, I mean study).

Cunning plan A, to rake in extra spondoolies, was at Antony Cribb’s virtual Fine Antique Arms & Armour sale on 23 April. He had a ‘17th-century Indian mail and plate shirt’ with four large metal plates to the front and sides and three columns of small overlapping plates on the back. Except for the fact that it was red with rust, which doubtless explained its super-low £400 to £600 estimate, it was a fine thing — 17th century is deemed properly old when it comes to Indian armour. Even better, I just happen to have (as one does) a similarly styled 17thcentury mail and plate helmet. Clean the one, put the two together on a mannequin (probably wearing a bright faux silk shirt) and how about £3,000-plus for such a rare combo, I suggested to Expert Nick?