A Hampstead auctioneer uncovered a hoard of jewellery in a filing cabinet while sorting through a large Edwardian house in Highgate.
The former owners had suffered a burglary several decades earlier and their children believed that all their parents' jewellery had been stolen. But valuer Harrison Goldman, who works for Heath Street auctioneers Dawsons, discovered a cache of rings, brooches, bracelets and pearl necklaces hidden at the bottom of an old filing cabinet.
He said: “It’s like being an archaeologist only without the mud! You never know where you might just find hidden treasure and thankfully, we oversaw the house clearance as who knows what would have happened otherwise!”.
Most of the 'Highgate hoard' goes under the hammer in Dawsons' Jewellery, Watches & Silver auction on March 11. The find follows Goldman's discovery of two rare Isokon ‘Short’ and ‘Long’ chairs in another North London property.
Designed by Marcel Breuer for the modernist Isokon building in Lawn Road, Hampstead, the former owner of the plywood chairs had worked at Bletchley Park codebreaking centre during World War II.
Hungarian born of Jewish background, Breuer was a key member of the Bauhaus design school, who fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s and briefly settled in London where he worked for Jack Pritchard's Isokon company. The chairs sold last month for £7800 and £3600 respectively and the team at Dawsons urge other north Londoners to get in touch if they have jewellery, furniture or other items they are keen to have valued.
Contact 0207 431 9445 or email info@DawsonsAuctions.co.uk
https://www.dawsonsauctions.co.uk/
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