But it was just one of a host of four-figure hammer prices, with other highlights including £3,220 for an East Anglia seal-top spoon of about 1660, £1,790 for a cake basket from 1747 and £2,150 for an ornate salver of 1778.

It didn't end there, and £3,100 bought a suite of three George III wine coasters by William Plummer, a tapering octagonal coffee pot from 1711 fetched £3,700 and a bowl by the celebrated Omar Ramsden and Alwyn Carr fell just £20 short of £3,000.

An unusual Old Sheffield Plate cucumber slicer from the 1790s displaying all the sense of innovation we might expect from the dawn of the Industrial Revolution was bought for £1,310.

And other big prices included £2,270 for a tortoiseshell snuff box, £2,740 for a slim and skilfully made cigarette case by Anders Nevalainnen for Karl Faberge, £2,150 for a well-fitted 1853 Victorian walnut dressing box and £2,620 for a small Victorian musical box with a singing bird under a hinged enamelled cover.

A collection of cutlery dominated by West Country spoons dating from about 1590 to 1730 totalled £33,900. Long-ago craftsmen from Exeter, Plymouth, Sherborne, Salisbury, Taunton, Tiverton and Crewkerne were represented, and the group's top price was £3,340 for a spoon from about 1620 by John Quick of Barnstaple.

Another gem was a fork by Martin (or Marlin) Gale, dated around 1669, believed to be the earliest English four-pronger in existence.

That fact spurred a number of serious collectors to seek the kudos of owning it, and they pushed its hammer price up to well over double its lower estimate at £1,790.