A HIGHWORTH auction house is urging people to root through their lofts for any Oriental treasures after last weekend’s sale raised nearly £250,00 from bidders around the world.

Kidson-Trigg’s latest special Oriental sale saw 500 lots on offer, of which there were 124 lots of snuff bottles, which attracted viewings from around the globe, and high demand on the internet for condition reports and phone bids.

It all went for a record hammer price of £246,470, which coupled with the rest of this April’s Oriental sale overall, marked a record result for Martin Kidson-Trigg, who has been on the auction rostrum since the 1960s. He said: “It has been an outstanding result, and a lot of very hard work, especially in the last 48 hours before the sale. “Global interest caused over 400 email enquiries, and my three Chinese specialist valuers on the auction team were delighted.”

Another lot of four ceramic panels were bought in a local jumble sale near Marlborough for £1 and sold for £8,000 to a bidder on the phone in Beijing.

And a local consignment from a vendor who had lived in Hong Kong in the 1980s, saw his hanging scroll Landscape of Guilin fetch £12,500 to a bidder on the American online bidding portal, against phone bidders in London and New York.

Pippa Kidson-Trigg, a director at the company, said: “The stories from Kidson-Trigg’s Oriental sale are quite outstanding, and we urge all local people to dig out their attics – you may well have hidden treasures so come and see us.

“One of the snuff bottle collections could easily have been overlooked, had it not been for the determination of one of the three specialist oriental valuers, Doug Wilson, who had gone to the house with Martin Kidson-Trigg. “Doug returned to the house with the vendor on several occasions. The vendor’s late father whose probate we were securing, told the story of their Godfather who had bequeathed his snuff bottle collection to the family’s father.

“They were aware of the collection as children but had never seen them – they were pretty much forgotten. “Their father had a habit of hiding things. Doug had to get on hands and knees under the eaves, and at the end of the attic found a black metal tin, with snuff boxes individually wrapped in tissue inside.”

The next specialist Oriental sale will be in July and for more details call Pippa Kidson-Trigg, saleroom director on 01793 861000 or email auctions@kidsontrigg.co.uk.