The Michael Bennett-Levy Early Technology Sale, 30 Sep 2009
 

Here are the Bonhams sale results for the Michael Bennett-Levy pre-war television collection:

Lot No: 667W An RCA-Victor mirror-lid television and radio console, type TRK120, 441-line, 1939,'
Estimate: £4,000 - 5,000
Sold for £4,800 inclusive of Buyer's Premium

Lot No: 668W An Invicta table model television, type TL5, 1939,
Estimate: £2,000 - 3,000
Sold for £2,280 inclusive of Buyer's Premium

Lot No: 669W An Ekco table model vision-only television, type TA201, 1939,
Estimate: £1,500 - 2,000
Sold for £2,160 inclusive of Buyer's Premium

Lot No: 671W A Marconi model 709 television and wireless console, 1939,
Estimate: £2,200 - 3,200
Sold for £6,600 inclusive of Buyer's Premium

Lot No: 672W An HMV Type 1850 television and wireless console, 1939,
Estimate: £6,000 - 8,000
Sold for £7,800 inclusive of Buyer's Premium

Lot No: 673W A Murphy television and wireless consolette, type A58V, 1938,
Estimate: £2,000 - 3,000
Sold for £2,640 inclusive of Buyer's Premium

Lot No: 674W A Cossor table model television, type 54, 1938,
Estimate: £1,800 - 2,500
Sold for £7,800 inclusive of Buyer's Premium

Lot No: 675W An HMV table model television and wireless, type 905, 1938,
Estimate: £2,200 - 2,800
Sold for £4,560 inclusive of Buyer's Premium

Lot No: 676W A rare HMV table model television and wireless, type 904 - 5-inch screen, 1938,
Estimate: £1,800 - 2,600
Sold for £6,600 inclusive of Buyer's Premium

Lot No: 677W A Murphy television console, type A56V, 1938,
Estimate: £2,000 - 3,000
Sold for £5,400 inclusive of Buyer's Premium

Lot No: 678W A Marconi table model television and wireless, type 707, 1938,
Estimate: £1,500 - 2,000
Sold for £4,800 inclusive of Buyer's Premium

Lot No: 679W A scarce RGD mirror-lid television cabinet, wireless and record-player console,
type 382RG, 1937, - all period television components removed,
Estimate: £1,500 - 2,000
Sold for £1,800 inclusive of Buyer's Premium

Lot No: 680W An HMV mirror-lid television and wireless console, type 900 with additional speaker outfit, 1937,
Estimate: £4,000 - 6,000
Sold for £3,840 inclusive of Buyer's Premium

Lot No: 681W A HMV television, wireless and autochange record-player grand cabinet console, type 902, 1937,
Estimate: £7,000 - 10,000

Lot No: 682W A very important Baird mirror-lid television, wireless, record-player and cellarette grand cabinet console, type T14, 1937,
Estimate: £15,000 - 20,000
Sold for £18,000 inclusive of Buyer's Premium

Lot No: 683W A Cossor television, type 437T table model, 1937,
Estimate: £1,500 - 2,000
Sold for £4,800 inclusive of Buyer's Premium

Lot No: 684W A Marconi mirror-lid television console, type 702, 1936, sold 1937,
Estimate: £2,600 - 3,200
Sold for £6,600 inclusive of Buyer's Premium

Lot No: 685W A Murphy mirror-lid type A42V television, cabinet 1937, with post-war chassis,
Estimate: £1,500 - 2,000

Lot No: 686W A Marconi Mastergram mirror-lid television, wireless and record-player console, type 703, 1937,
Estimate: £4,000 - 6,000
Sold for £4,200 inclusive of Buyer's Premium

Lot No: 687W A Marconi mirror-lid television and wireless console, type 705, 1936,
Estimate: £3,800 - 4,200
Sold for £6,600 inclusive of Buyer's Premium

Lot No: 688W A unique television, wireless and record-player console, probably RGD, circa 1936,
Estimate: £3,500 - 5,500
Sold for £8,400 inclusive of Buyer's Premium

Lot No: 689W A Cossor television and wireless console, type 137T, 1936, the world's first commercial high-definition electronic television,
Estimate: £10,000 - 15,000
Sold for £12,000 inclusive of Buyer's Premium

Lot No: 694W A rare Baird Televisor, by the Plessey Company, circa 1930, No. 217, with 30-line five-spoke Nipkow disc,
Estimate: £9,000 - 12,000
Sold for £18,000 inclusive of Buyer's Premium

The big surprise was 36,000 for a common Block III iconoscope camera system. The cameras typically sell for about $600 on Ebay.

The other big surprise was the high prices for the bakelite Bush TV-22, etc. More than twice the normal sale prices.

It would be interesting to see what countries these sets ended up going to.

BTW, thanks for the nice summary Eckhard. They took down the estimates so it was nice to see how close they came. For the most part, it looks like they sold for more than the estimated price.

Darryl

Hi Steve, hi Darryl,

yes, the bakelite Bushs were exorbitant high:

Lot No: 630W A Bush type TV22 television, 1949-50,
Sold for £1,680 inclusive of Buyer's Premium

Lot 601 W A Bush table model television, type TV62, 1956,
Sold for £720 inclusive of Buyer's Premium

Lot 613 W A Bush type TV32 table model television. 1953,
Sold for £600 inclusive of Buyer's Premium

But compare these with this one:

Lot 638 W A Bush type TV12B table model television, 1949,
Sold for £60 inclusive of Buyer's Premium

Some other remarkable lots:

Lot 649 W A John Logie Baird Ltd 'Lyric' television and wireless console, 1946,
Sold for £19,200 inclusive of Buyer's Premium

Lot 589 W A Sony Trinitron type KV-1330UB table model colour television, the first transistor colour television by Sony, 1968,
Sold for £1,140 inclusive of Buyer's Premium

An important CBS experimental field-sequential colour television prototype, with six field sequential colour wheels, circa 1950, 7
Sold for £3,000 inclusive of Buyer's Premium

BTW: the total sum of all lots of the Michael Bennett-Levy Early Technology Sale is £676,304.

Kind regards,
Eckhard

676,000 pounds ?!? Hay-Zoos, thats SERIOUS money...A good $750K, anyhow...

Michael Bennett-Levy emailed a link to his web site last night:
http://www.earlytech.com/
Theres some videos and pictures including a nice picture of the German Weiler vertical mirror-drum television assembly running.

According to the Google converter:

676 000 British pounds = 1.0818704 million U.S. dollars

I wonder how much the 'source of these pieces' being the Bennett-Levy
Collection has to do with the higher than expected prices?

Perhaps their new owners will proudly say, 'this color drum set was once part of the Michael Bennett Levy Collection which makes it worth much more than usual.'

Cliff

Holy smokes! I just picked up one of these (not even sure yet if it's Block 1 or Block 3) for not much money. I wonder if I'm rich? Hey, I'll let mine go for only $30,000! :)

--Dave

Hello Gentlemen,

Just for your information, i captured and titled all the TV related pictures from the auction. It constitutes a very nice source of precise data concerning model numbers, dates, etc.

Can Mail to anyone who wants it, just give your Maill address by PM.
One Zipped file, 4Mb, 123 TV pix, 44 books & misc.

Can't post because of Bonham's copyright on the pictures.

If you contact Bonham's they are selling the auction catalogue at half price now that the sale is over, i.e. UK £14.00, postage included for Europe (may be more for the US). Usually auction houses catalogues are beautiful A4 sized books with glossy photos printed on luxury paper. A nice consolation from not buying a pre-war TV!

Mail or phone here:
http://www.bonhams.com/cgi-bin/publi...=subscriptions

Steve, if you're reading this, the 15G is now complete and safe at RACS, let the fun begin...

Best Regards to All

jhalphen
Paris/France

Incredible! :banana:

I was there and some of the prices were pretty wild. The strangest of all had to be the TV22 against the TV12. The TV22 set a new record: UK prices range from GBP70 for a rough specimen to maybe GBP400 for a really nice restored worker. They are common enough. The TV12 fetches similar prices and GBP50 was a bargain.

There were quite a few postwar TVs that were knocked down for low prices. For some of them the hammer went down so fast that I didn't react fast enough to bid on them!

Unsold tv sets of the Michael Bennett-Levy Early Technology Sale are now available on ebay, see:

http://shop.ebay.co.uk/thebrollachan...1&_from=&_ipg=

Gah! They said they'd put the HMV console on a skip and set fire to it if it doesn't sell!

I can't imagine what the shipping would be from the U.K.

John