The offering was not such a hoot as part one, which made $13.5 million, but serious buyers calculated that the reduced brouhaha would generate both the bargains and sleepers that proved relatively elusive in the June sale.
They were right. Ten am on a Sunday morning is also not the best time to draw out discretionary buyers who might distort price. But owls are awake while others sleep
and a silver version of one of their own soared to become one of the big sleepers of the sale.
The continued dispersal on Sunday of the developer Warren Anderson and family collection known as the Owston collection contributed $1.5 million to the $4.6 million grossed by the three days of auctions, including cars and jewellery from multiple vendors, which started on Saturday and continued until Monday night.
Owston provided only five of the 284 unsold lots from the 1728 lot sale.
While many of the Owston lots doubled or tripled their estimates lot 412, a Victorian owl-shaped tobacco box was the biggest surprise at $21,600 against estimates of $750 to $1000. It flew into the darkness as it were as it was impossible to elaborate on the identity or source of the bidding.
Many bidders registered its value as a piece of silver by the celebrated smiths Charles, Thomas and George Fox as stated in a saleroom notice - but not in the catalogue.
Over 100 people were in the non-airconditioned room most of Sunday and it stayed like that through most of the day. The sale attracted few rubber-neckers and the presence was trimmed by the overpowering temperatures of a Sydney summer. No one stayed longer than they had to.
The chief executive officer of Bonhams Australia, Mr James Hendy, said that bulking the multi-vendor car and jewellery sales in with the antiques produced some very useful cross-over buying as car and jewellery buyers bought taxidermy and so on - and vice versa.
The bargain of the sale was possibly also in the silver section. Mole Creek, Tasmania, antique dealer Mr John Hawkins secured a silver centrepiece showing a staghunt (Lot 411 ) for $30,000 hammer ($36,000 with premium) against estimates of $15,000 to $20,000.
Mr Hawkins, who has a big library of books devoted to 19th century international exhibitions, identified the piece as one of the rare pieces exhibited at the Great Exhibition held in London in 1951. He anticipated selling it to a client overseas.
Mr Hawkins bought back some of the objects he had sold Mr Warren Anderson, the driving force behind the collection, principally giving $50,000 IBP for the egg of a Madagascar elephant bird (estimates.$20,000 to $30,000).
Given that Christie's had sold one in Paris in April, 2009 fpr Euro51,000 Mr Hawkins was happy with his buy. The bird is long extinct.
Redfern, Sydney dealer Mr Martyn Cook, however, trumped the maestro on a pair of Russian ormolu and amethyst coloured cut glasses made by the (Russian) Imperial Glass Manufactury around 1830-40. paying $240,000 IBP which was well over the $100,000 top estimate.
Hawkins also wanted the vases but found the price a little rich. A fine pair of George III bergeres also fell to Mr Cook's paddle 232 for $35,000 ($42,000 IBP) compared with estimates of $20,000 to $30,000. As acknowledged in the catalogue, Mr Anderson had acquired them from the high profile London firm of Mallett's with which Mr Cook has had a long association and exhibition history.
A further big strike in the antiques was made by a Sydney contemporary art dealer, Mr Michael Nagy, who in very keen bidding paid $43,200 for a rhyton stirrup cup by J.S.Hunt of London, 1847. (410) Mr Nagy, whose brother Richard deals Viennese Secessionism out of rooms in Mayfair, said he was bidding for a buyer overseas.
This silver pourer in the shape of a bull's head was estimated at $2500 to $2500 but word was out that bulls too might fly and bidding opened at $8,000.
Mr Nagy also paid $9500 (est 3000 to $5000) plus the 20 per cent GST for a collection of scrimshaw (Lot 315 ).
With the tenacity of male fish-eating crocodiles taxidermy buyers snapped up both the Owston and other vendor offerings consigned in response to the specimens offered in Owston part I. A young man who said he had half a dozen stuffed animals in his den at home bought a skull of one of these crocs for $3210 (Lot 321 ) setting the tone for the rest of the sale as there appeared to be many buyers like him but of both sexes in the room.
Although its colour suggested a lacking of the wisdom and solemnity of its species, a stuffed adult male white owl from the Owston collection (Lot 347 ) with a good provenance (labelled Spocan and Co, Lemmington 1920) made $3600.
Mr Hendy said that the taxidermy was well supported from overseas.
The racial complexion of the room changed a little from pink to yellow when the "outside" vendors Asian lots were offered.
Celadon was the colour and glaze of the moment, however, when a 9cm figure of a boy and frog (lots 673) made $12,000 against estimates of $1200 to $1800.
Further hints were given of the frenzy for Chinese art that errupted in a London regional saleroom recently when a lot 677, a Chinese Jui went under the hammer. It made $32,400 against estimates of $3600 to $5000 and obviously was a very different specimen to the similarly sized and of like appearance Jui which sold four lots before it (674) for $7800.
In the very different world of Bainbridges an 18th century Chinese vase found in a house clearance made $90 million on November 11.