Chain sale ‘blunder’ cost Lord his estate
AN Old Etonian lord is suing Sotheby’s for putting a £35,000 valuation on a Tudor gold necklace that was later sold by a collector for £300,000.
Lord Coleridge says the auction house was negligent in telling him the chain of office believed to date from the reign of Henry VII was a copy.
The ex-Guards officer, 74, said he was banking on the 500-year-old family heirloom – known as the Coleridge Collar – to save him from having to sell his country estate after falling on hard times.
Instead, he sold the collar to a private collector in 2006 for £35,000 in line with Sotheby’s valuation.
However, fewer than two years later it was sold on by Sotheby’s rival Christie’s for more than £300,000 after the firm revalued it as a Tudor original. Yesterday, Lord Coleridge, the fifth Baron of Ottery St Mary, in Devon, launched a High Court action for damages for alleged undervaluation.
Sotheby’s insists the collar – similar to one worn by Sir Thomas More in the painting by Hans Holbein the Younger – is a 17th century copy and its valuer Elizabeth Mitchell was not negligent in her assessment.
Lord Coleridge’s daughter, Tania Harcourt-Cooze, told the court: “At the beginning she very quickly deemed it was not of any value at all. I remember I laughed and said ‘Is it going to save the house or not?’ and she put a figure of £35,000 or thereabouts.
“It was the golden egg that might save the house. The bubble had been popped.” The court heard the Coleridges later sold their Chanter’s House estate.
The hearing continues.