Railwayanna Auction - September 2019

[KMCE]

Hello All,

 

I just bid on some DSER Locomotive & Coach photos on e-Bay and was in touch with the seller (marymurray22)  looking to see if there was more where these came from. 

The reply:

"I am selling on behalf of my mother, who has now decided to put all of H C Casserley and R M Casserley ( my grandad and father) negatives collection up to auction in September through G W Auctions . (I think its on their website, with venue tbc. They do have live iternet bidding though! Its the whole archive including Ireland and I know grandad was particularly fond of you lot! "

 

Site in question: www.gwra.co.uk   

Auction is listed, but no information yet.

 

May be one for the diary.

 

 

BTW - She has a lot of UK railway photos etc up for auction on e-bay if anyone is interested.

 

Regards,

Ken

[Mayner]

The Casserley Irish collection is historically significant, I hope it goes to a good home.

H C Casserley started recording Irish railways principally locos from the late 20s initially concentration on older locos that were still in service and the minor companies.

Its possible that some of the negatives may be glass plate, his photos form the 20s & 30s are to a really high standard.

I always assumed that Bob Clements was interested mainly in locomotives especially the Midland, his collection of ex-DSER coaches adds another dimension.

[Irishswissernie]

I have heard that the Casserley negatives were offered to an 'organisation' for £20,000 which sum was somewhat beyond their means, but it will give some idea of their expected Auction value. 

ERnie

Edited May 3, 2019 by Irishswissernie

[KMCE]

Ernie,

Was that for the complete collection or just the Irish element?

It would be interesting to see if they would be open to offers for some elements of the collection....

Ken

[Irishswissernie]

It would be for the lot I think . Its probably a bit too far the line to be making private offers, the auctioneers will have an agreement in place and they will be wanting to make the most of their 'cut' Then again 'nothing ventured, nothing gained'.

One redeeming factor if that is the right word is that the Casserley negatives have had a great deal of "public exposure" over the years so it could be just a case of searching old books, magazines etc for images.

I have before me an album of 600 odd mainly Irish  negatives which need identifying, mainly ex NCC and GNRI taken in 1964/5. There is an index but the handwriting is (incredibly!) worse than mine and I havn't yet got permission to use them on my Archive.Fingers crossed! 

Also today I have tacit agreement to use another collection once the Executor has passed them on. What I really want though are some more decent IR & IE freight 1990's to 2005 in colour. OH! and to win the Lottery.

 

Ernie 

[jhb171achill]

I've seen much of his stuff and its very interesting. As said, many of his pictures have been published over the years. Let us hope that the new owner will allow the collection to remain accessible by the public, rather than secreted away like some collections. The late Richard Casserley was always very helpful to researchers.

[leslie10646]

I have heard that the Casserley negatives were offered to an 'organisation' for £20,000 which sum was somewhat beyond their means, but it will give some idea of their expected Auction value. 

Yes, Ernie, I suspect that that would be a figure for "the lot". As he (they? for Richard was a prolific photographer also and as Jon has said, very helpful to authors) took double figures of thousands of non-Irish topics, the Irish element, if the collection was split, should be at a manageable price.

Again as young Jon has said, they have been widely exposed in print and many people have prints from the collection - Henry certainly sold copies during his lifetime.

Getting back to the possible figure for the total collection, I cannot think of any society with that sort of money to spend on a collection - most photographers leave their collections to a club they had been a member of.

[Irishswissernie]

The Casserly Auction went ahead yesterday and I was lucky enough to win 9 lots although only 2 of these are Irish negatives totalling some 200+ ex GNRI Enniskillen/Bundoran SLNCR and Cork/Rosslare/CBSC areas, 1950. THe narrow gauge went for far more but I did manage to get the lot of 150 covering the Isle of Man in 1950.

I just have to arrange delivery now, scan them and they will be on Flickr in due course.

The Auctioneers told me this is only half the collection and there will be a further sale next year.

Ernie

[jhb171achill]

Well done Ernie, and Leslie!

If I had the money I'd have gone for them too, though a bidding war would have been to nobody's advantage.

Richard was very helpful to me with several research projects in the past.