Sustenance doesn’t usually top the selling charts at Golding Young but a piece of cake set pulses racing to the tune of £650 at the most recent Lincoln Collective offering on August 12th.
This was admittedly a rather special culinary delight being a slice of wedding cake from the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer, way back in 1981.
Bound beautifully as to be expected in a card box with ribbon, on one hand it shows the quirky nature of the market and that rarity and things a little different can send financial pulses racing when going under the hammer, but on the other shows that big money can change hands for objects of status that have very little use.
There is little chance (unless your postcode begins with SW1) that your neighbour will have any of this iced masterpiece and when you think about it, it is finite; obviously large quantities would’ve been eaten, lost, trashed, thrown at people (perhaps even thrown out) so one assumes the item is rare.
Going back to the usefulness of a piece of 40 odd year old cake; what can you do with it? You could of course eat it, but in doing so you are consuming a high valued item, of course the thing people do with a piece of cake from a Royal Wedding a generation ago is to gloat to their friends: the purchaser now owns an item very few people have, the names involved still rouse attention throughout the world and here is a small piece of history, one of the most remarkable events of the time illustrated in cake form and I bet there aren’t as many pieces in the world as you think, rarity and class remain key focal points in achieving good auction results.
£650 for something you cannot do anything with other than look at it. Compare this price to say the furniture market, the same amount paid for say a chest of drawers would land one of George III’s finest these days, useful, beautiful, but completely out of fashion in today’s market.
We have come along way in collecting trends, this price is high for what it was in comparison to other pieces sold recently and as long as interest remains, figures will continue to rise.
It shows there is still money around for the right item, but it perhaps also shows that the world has gone mad, drunk on the stench of celebrity, but as long as people still collect SOMETHING then we are all for it!
This proves never dispose of anything, we are always here to generate the highest prices from cakes to candelabra, pies to pictures, never discount anything and never be afraid to seek advice from us!
