The great auk : a record of sales of birds and eggs by public auction in Great Britain, 1806-1910 : with historical and descriptive notes ... / by Thomas Parkin.

  • Parkin, Thomas, 1845-
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The great auk : a record of sales of birds and eggs by public auction in Great Britain, 1806-1910 : with historical and descriptive notes ... / by Thomas Parkin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    ~ 23 Mr. Middlebrook thus became the possessor of four eggs of the Great Auk, all of them purchased in these rooms, and three of them at consecutive sales; the price paid for them was £183, £239, £168 and £315, in all a sum of £911. After the death of Mr. Middlebrook, this egg was disposed of by auction, by Messrs. Debenham, Storr and Sons, Ltd., of 26 King Street, Covent Garden, at the dispersal of the * Middlebrook Museum, when it failed to find a higher bid than £110, at which price it became the property of Rowland Ward, Ltd ,—vide p. 33 (Sales by auction otherwise than at Stevens’ rooms)--who disposed of it to Col. John E. Thayer, for the Thayer Museum, Lancaster, Massachusetts, U.S.A. EGGS XIX. and XIII. (Sale number eighteen.) Two eggs of the Great Auk, on June 20th, 1900. The first of the two eggs (lot A) is described in the sale catalogue No. 10,204 as “ probably the finest ever offered for sale.” Egg XIX. - Lot A. An unrecorded egg from a French collection. This is the finest specimen known of this special type of marking.” Bought by Mr. James Gardner, of Oxford Street, for £330 15 O Mr. Bidwell tells me that he has every reason to believe that this is the egg referred to by M. Leon Olph-Galliard—vide “ Ibis,” 1862 p. 302— as the measurements and description agree exactly, and it was sent from Lyons, though the owner’s name was never disclosed. Egg XIII. - “ Lot B. Egg of the Great Auk. This egg formed Lot 75 at the sale in these rooms on April 24th, 1894. It was one of the two eggs purchased in a box of fossils at an auction in Kent.” Purchased by Mr. James Gardner, of Oxford Street, London, for £189 O O Both thesfc eggs became the property of the late Sir J. H. Greville Smyth, Bart,, of Ashton Court, Somerset. At the sale in these rooms on April 24th, 1894, Mr. Henry Munt had given £183 15 0 for the second egg—vide p. 15. *The Eggs were on show for some time at Middlebrook’s Free Museum in the “ Edinburgh Castle, Mornington Road. Regent's Park, N.W. I have in my possession an illustrated handbook [2nd edition] to this museum, which contains on p. 18, a picture of the owner standing beside a table or stand with four shelves, the lower one having on it his four eggs of the Great Auk.—T. P.