Missing tea cups sold for an eye-watering £43,000!

At the back end of 2017 a set of missing tea cups and saucers were sold at Wellers of Guildford auction house for a quite astonishing £43,750. Auctioneers at Wellers were left flabbergasted by the sale at their their monthly jewellery and antique auction on December 19. On the market with no reserve, it came as a shock to all when they were later revealed to be part of set made by the famous Sevres Porcelain manufacturer of France.

Wellers’ managing director Chris Sykes said: “Although the auction house had failed to spot the items, the advantage of using its three online auction platforms was to draw bidders to auction based on photographs and descriptions given in the catalogue as well as mail alerts that bidders received based on their expressed interested.

He continued: “In this way, a failure to initially recognise value by a provincial auction house does not necessarily lead to what is known in the trade as a ‘sleeper’ passing through for little value”. The item was introduced by auctioneer Robert Snelgar and he began the bidding at a starting price of £50. Several buyers were interested in the historic items – really really interested.

So interested the price soon rocketed past the £43,000 mark. It was disclosed by the successful bidder there are only three others of these cups in existence – two of which are currently exhibited in the Louvre museum in Paris.