I paid £70 for rare painting worth £8,000 at car boot sale – my three must-follow tips to find gems

The Sun

2 days ago

ANTIQUES lover Sally-Ann Cathcart can often be seen hunting for treasures at car boot sales - but one find has left her quids in.
The 50-year-old antiques dealer from North Shropshire paid just £70 for a pair of paintings - and she's now been told they could sell for £8,000 at auction.
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She was on one of her regular car boot sale trips in Bridgnorth when she spotted the paintings and immediately she knew she'd stumbled across something incredibly special.
That's because the ultra-rare paintings were the work of one of the UK's most famous artists, Percy Shakespeare - and they were going for a bargain price.
'My eyes lit up when I saw them,' she told The Sun. 'I literally had that little heart flutter. I knew instantly what they were.'
Sally-Ann said the man who sold her the paintings was a regular at car boot sales but 'clearly didn't know the value' of the art.
The seller had got hold of the paintings while doing a house clearance for a lady.
Unbelievably, they had been sat at the bottom of a trunk underneath a pile of old newspapers and magazines.
The 1928 watercolour paintings show two children - a young boy and a girl - and Sally-Ann believes they may have been the children of the lady who owned the trunk.
The paintings hadn't been in a frame or come with a plastic covering but Sally-Ann said they were in incredible condition as they had been kept inside the trunk for so long.
She says she snapped them up immediately, and still has them 10 years on.
Sally-Ann is a huge fan of Percy Shakespeare and is planning to keep hold of the paintings because she loves them so much.
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But it was only recently that she decided to get them valued - and she was given a huge shock.
An expert told her she could likely get £8,000 for the paintings if she took them to auction.
'I just have a second of thinking, 'have I heard you correctly?',' she said. 'I wanted to punch the air.'
Other pieces of art from Percy Shakespeare that have gone to auction have sold for 10 times their estimated value, Sally-Ann says.
If that came true for her, she could net herself a whopping £80,000 - although of course you never know what someone will pay at auction.
The money might be tempting, but Sally-Ann says she plans to keep the paintings.
'I would only sell them if I absolutely really needed to because I just want to treasure them,' she says.
The antiques dealer might be planning to keep hold of this rare find, but she's also made a small business out of buying and selling treasures from car boot sales and vintage fairs.
Some of her clients include Cath Kidston, the National Trust and Pinewood Studios.
'Pinewood Studios is always fascinating because it could be like 'right we're doing a 1950s film and we need a petrol blue car'.
'Sometimes I'll be like, yeah, actually funnily enough, I've got one in the garage. Is this any good to you?'
She's even sent an order to St James's Palace, where Princess Anne and Princess Beatrice live.
Sally-Ann started out collecting antiques as a child when her grandma used to take her to Birmingham rag markets.
'I guess I've grown up with that old-fashioned rooting through, finding the best bargains,' she said.
She bought her first antique - a 1920s art deco wallet - at around seven years old.
'I've always felt very comfortable in old places, old buildings,' she says.
'I love that whole old-fashioned mentality of let's make do and mend, which I think is perhaps coming back into fashion now. And then I've built a business out of it.'
Now she'll often get requests from clients who ask her to search for specific items and she'll go on a hunt for them.
Sally-Ann says she might for example be able to pick up a mirror for £5 and then sell it on for £120 to £150.
Other memorable finds
SALLY-ANN says she buys everything secondhand and her best finds end up staying with her. These are the ones she treasures the most…
Vintage barometer
The antiques dealer owns one of the oldest barometers produced by optician James Aitchison, who later went on to form optician chain Dollond & Aitchison in 1750.
Sally-Ann says she picked up the antique for just £2 at a car boot sale last year.
Photo album
Another find is a photo album from the 1900s, which she snapped up for just £1.
Sally-Ann says the photos inside show holidays and some sort of boating event.
Photo of a World War One soldier
Sally-Ann also picks out a photograph of a soldier from World War One.
'He looks about 16, and it's a beautiful French photograph of him,' she says. 'It hangs in my house and it has done for about 25 years.'
Sally-Ann's top tips for finding valuable antiques
The antiques dealer says she's developed an eye for something valuable over the years, but it's always worth going along to a car boot sale and seeing what you can find.
'The key things for car boots are take plenty of change, take comfortable shoes, take lots of bags, get there early,' she says.
But her biggest tip is to remember your manners when talking to sellers.
'People will expect you to haggle at a car boot. So, if somebody says the item is £2, it is absolutely fine to say, 'would you take £1, please?
'And if they say, no, I wouldn't, no problem, you just decide whether you want to pay the £2 or not.'
Sally-Ann says that around 70% of the time sellers will take the lower price, so you shouldn't be afraid to haggle but 'just do it with politeness and courtesy'.
Sally-Ann says she's seen people throwing items back down onto the seller's table after not getting a lower price - and that's not the way to go.
Another of her tips is that if we see something you like, you shouldn't wait around.
'Because if you leave it, I promise you, when you go back it will be gone,' she says.
Sally-Ann says it's easy to start buying and selling antiques.
'You haven't got to invest thousands of pounds. You can take £20 or even £10 in cash this weekend, go to the car boot sale and just see what you can get.'