The sale of the box and other top lots, all of which bar one found buyers, contributed to the $1.1 million hammer total but was not enough to equal the $1.3 million low estimate, our special correspondent writes.
The sale was 70 per cent sold by value and 66 per cent by lot reflecting the established market trend for stand out items to sell more readily than the lower priced range.
However, sleepers across the board, including the gold box, helped give the sale momentum.
The sleeper of the patchy sale from which just 281 lots out of 430 sold was a carved Indian fly swish which made $14,400 IBP.
Excluding the buyers' premium the swish, which was knocked down to a telephone bidder for $12,000 ($14,400 IBP), sold for 5.1 times the mid-estimates of $1800 to $2500.
Getting to the price was a flogging-like experience: slow and torturous.
The snuff box made from Tasmanian gold had been expected to take the honour.
That is ignoring the Chinese lots, where sleepers come entirely out of the blue.
It was still the biggest sleeper in terms of value when it sold sold for $90,000 or 4.2 times its mid estimates ($18,000 to $25,000).
The estimates on the box seemed ultra-conservative, although reflecting the very special nature of the object and uncertainties in the Australiana market
The interest in the ivory swish on the other hand related to its manufacture in one of the other new economies.
It was Indian and made in the second half of the 19th century. Perhaps the buyer could link it with a specific rajah.
The snuff box was unusual in that it was made of Tasmanian gold in Birmingham in 1858
It was presented to William Robertson, an explorer and pastoralist who arrived in Tasmania in 1837 and had a convict with a ball and chain engraved on the lid.
The box was a piece of "early colonial cringe." Only British manufacture was good enough for the recipient who was the promoter of the first public settlement in Victoria.
On Sunday Australiana collectors, presumably including public institutions but none of them in the room, cast aside any prejudices they may have had in favour of Australian- made silver to chase the 18 carat lot.
The lot was knocked down to a phone held by Catherine Franklin, a late entrant to what had become a bidding duel between other Bonhams staff members, Mark Fraser and Dalia Stanley sitting at the phone desk .
Fraser formerly worked for David Walsh, owner of the Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart, Tasmania, leaving because his job there was done.
Walsh has been a major donor to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, a natural home for the box, on several occasions.
When two lots later the same Bonhams staff member on the telephone passed on a successful bid of $94,000 against estimates of $40,000 to $60,000 for a collection of 171 gelatin silver chronological prints by Max Dupain the speculation as to where these might end up focussed on a national institution.
The same bidder's number was used and the two lots had connections with three different states.
The photos showed the construction of the Sydney Opera House as it progressed.
Watch out for a public announcement as to where these might have gone.
A third stand out lot may have gone in a different direction. This was a collection of letters by Patrick White. A bid from Melbourne rare book dealer Douglas Stewart in the room of $42,000 was referred by the auctioneer James Hendy to the vendor.
This very special trove had been estimated to make $55,000 to $75,000 and Hendy's follow-on auctioneer, Fraser, announced later in the auction that the photographs had been sold.
Stewart, a buyer for leading public libraries, said afterwards that he was only able to confirm at this time that he was the successful bidder.
Bonhams had no grand expectations of its Chinese offering but jades being notoriously unpredictable, proved its specialists too pessimistic.
A 7cm by 4cm ivory and russet Song-Ming nephrite plaque, carved with dragons, sold on the phone for $24,000 ($28,800 with BP) against $1200 to $1800. The interest was in line with others paid elsewhere recently for objects that have passed through the hands of leading London dealers.
It had been sold by Sydney Moss into a private collection and then passed by descent to the latest owner.
Another jade object sold years ago by Moss sold for $25,000 against estimates of $1500 to $2500. Both went to Dalia Stanley, who is Bonhams Australia's leading decarts specialist, on the phone,
A Qianlong Chinese celadon and russet jade Ko or Kuei blade was sold for $14,000 ($16,800 IBP) against estimates of $1500 to $2000. The blade enjoyed the provenance of Douglas Wright, London 1974 "private collection UK and thence by descent, private collection, Sydney".
The Chinese also obviously cringe culturally.
While made in China the blade had been very much appreciated by identifiable British individuals.
Bidding was agonisingly slow on the Chinese lots as buyers mulled over what they were doing.
Close to 25 local and interstate Chinese socialised during a sale attended by about 200 bidders and observers.
A TV crew came along to record what clearly was the media's notion of the only historically significant item in the sale. .
Graham Kennedy's faded purple crown, sold for the Japanese Earthquake Appeal, made $14,000 against estimates of $12,000 to $18,000 to a unknown buyer in the room.
A major disappointment in that they were collectors items which were thought to be relatively unaffected by the antique market decline, was the failure of cameo scent bottles by Stourbridge glass maker Thomas Webb to sell.
These were in the shapes of swans' heads to sell at $16,000 to $20,000 each (two lots) and a third lot estimated at $8000 to $20,000.
A pair of Russian amethyst cut glass and gilt bronze amphora vases at $60,000 to $90,000 failed to attract the bidding seen in the original Owston sale which 18 months ago established Bonhams in Australia, and were the only major lot not to sell.
At that sale a similar pair made $240,000.
This surely is likely Russian nouveau riche taste But other lots reminiscent of Owston, such as the Japanese suits of armour, also fell down on their luck as the antique market slumbered on.
Only 46 of the 430 lots in the sale were stated to come from the trade.
However, both the trade and private buyers bid selectively throughout with just a few surprises and there were many dry patches.
The surprises included the discovery of a buyer for a Napoleon III boulle secretaire bookcase which, however, still sold for only $8,400 IBP, that is at the bottom estimate.
Boulle has taken as much of a battering from the advent of minimalism as brown furniture.
A run of unsold Louis XV at the beginning of the sale suggested that of all the Louis, Louis Farouk was still king.
A set of six Victorian mahogany balloon backed dining chairs, once so desirable, also found a home at a rock bottom $2100.