Ping and you're winning

An email alert for burgonets coming to auction draws Roger Field’s attention to a promising lot. Meanwhile, a sale from novelist John le Carré’s estate temporarily raises an eyebrow

- Roger Field

IT WAS NOT quite a Dad’s Army ‘stupid boy’ moment but I detected a certain weariness in Expert Nick’s voice as he explained why my latest cunning auction wheeze was ‘doomed’. What happened was this. Much as I can hate technology, I love the sleepless search engine at the-saleroom.com that alerts me to auction goodies from all over the UK and Europe; things I would never otherwise know were for sale. Simply select keywords for the engine to search for and then, when said words appear in an auction catalogue, ping! An email with an auction link appears. Genius.

That said, I need to be clever lest I end up swamped in a tsunami of unwanted emails. For example, regular readers will know that I am a sucker for an ancient helmet. However, use ‘helmet’ as a search word and I would receive details of everything from motorcycle helmets to First and Second World War battle bowlers, and anything ‘helmety’ in between. So many in fact that I might miss any desirable helmets that do occasionally pop up in regional auction rooms. ‘Sword’ is another word to avoid.

Many provincial general sales include a sword or seven. After all, our proud, empire-building forebears were nothing if not great souvenir collectors. So, instead of helmet, I use ‘burgonet’ (a mid-16th/ early-17th-century light cavalry helmet) and ‘close helmet’ (a full-face version with visor). For sword I use ‘katana’ (a Japanese longsword). My reckoning is that any sale that includes a katana, burgonet or close helmet will often have other interesting stuff as well. This filtering system works, I know, although I doubtless miss occasional, one-off, esoteric offerings.