AN ECLECTIC mix of items, including taxidermied animals, from a popular Whitchurch venue have produced good results at a recent auction.

The sale of items from Percy’s Café Bar on Wednesday, April 14 yielded some large returns, with many items selling for thousands of pounds.

Top of the bill was a reformed Gothic design double bed, in the manner of Bruce Talbert, which sold for more than £1,800, but it was taxidermy that loomed large.

The convention in international trade in endangered species (CITES) is taken seriously by auctioneers Halls and they confirmed that the examples were legitimate, with many having been approved and certificated by the Guild of Taxidermists.

One tiger skin, by an anonymous taxidermist, made the upper estimate of £600 and a 1935 dhole head achieved £380.

This Asiatic wild dog’s head was by the famous taxidermist Van Ingen, better known for his tiger and leopard skins.

Elsewhere a macaque monkey sold for an upper estimate £340 and a European wild cat exceeded its estimate to take £180.

With taxidermy, as with most works, condition is key, but quality and maker are also vital.

Given most examples were unnamed and showing their age a little, the results were undoubtedly helped by the Percy’s Café Bar name.

Quirkiness is always a good factor and so the humorous addition of the fez helped the monkey to better expectations and a group of anatomical teaching aid skeletons sold for sums up to £800.

Signs and advertising have remained trendy and so it proved with a glass shop sign for Bert’s Fish Bar, London, that trebled its estimate to sell for a hammer price of £650 and, clearly of local interest, a Whitchurch road sign, circa 1950, despite being typically weathered, sold for £210.

Elsewhere the eclectic theme continued with an enormous Chinese wooden sculpture selling for £1,150, a Fuji Sportif bike making £500 and an 18th century, eight-day oak longcase clock, by Bullock of Ellesmere, defied expectations to sell for £750, likely to a local private buyer.