OUR 200 YEAR HISTORY

Pearls, Poultry & Pendants: The Unusual Auctions of Lyon & Turnbull’s Early Years

26 November 2024

Lyon & Turnbull

When Jonathan Lyon placed his first advert as an auctioneer on 18 October 1826, few could have predicted that his small Market Street saleroom in Edinburgh would grow into Scotland’s oldest auction house.

Those first sales were modest, household goods, seized items, even a stolen set of fire-irons and a piece of carpet, yet within decades, Lyon & Turnbull had become known for handling treasures that ranged from the refined to the truly unusual.

Between 1826 and 1900, the firm staged auctions that capture the colour and eccentricity of Victorian life. Here are a few highlights.

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The Fame of Prize Poultry

One of the quirkiest traditions of the 19th century was the annual sale of Inchmartine Poultry, bred by the remarkable Mrs Ferguson Blair (later Lady Arbuthnott). Her exotic birds, Dorkings, Cochin-Chinas, Brahmapootras, Toulouse Geese and Rouen Ducks, were national prizewinners and sold under Lyon & Turnbull’s hammer from 1866 onwards.

The catalogues of these sales read like something between an agricultural manual and a gentleman’s collector’s guide, drawing breeders from across Britain. It’s a reminder that auctions weren’t just about art and antiques, they were a marketplace for passions of every kind.

Jewels and Oriental Pearls

Yet alongside the everyday, Lyon & Turnbull managed one of the most glittering auctions of its age: an extraordinary collection of precious stones.

Among the lots were forty-four large Oriental pearls weighing 735 grains, which sold for £780, a significant sum at the time. Alongside them was a “magnificent single stone brilliant diamond ring” hammered at £635, with eminent London dealers, including Rothschild, in the room.

These sales gave the firm early recognition as a house trusted to handle high-value jewels and luxury objects.

Our 200 Year History

Relics of Mary, Queen of Scots

In 1888, Lyon & Turnbull auctioned a gold cross pendant inlaid with pearls and rubies, claimed to be a relic of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Whether the provenance was watertight or simply a hopeful Victorian attribution is hard to say but the pendant fetched £55, a reminder of how fascination with Mary Stuart fuelled Scotland’s romantic imagination.

Shells, Cabinets & Curiosities

The salerooms of 19th-century Edinburgh also attracted collectors of the rare and the peculiar. In 1868, the firm promoted “one of the most unique and recherché collections of works of ornamental and decorative art ever exposed for public competition in this city”.

And in 1858, Lyon & Turnbull sold the 25,000-strong shell collection of Dr John Knapp, a natural history auction that packed the room with scientists, collectors and the curious.

From Everyday to Extraordinary

The beauty of these early auctions lies in their variety. In the same rooms where fire-irons and carpets might once have been sold, buyers could later bid on Oriental pearls, Renaissance cabinets, or a flock of Cochin-Chinas.

This mix of the everyday and the extraordinary is part of Lyon & Turnbull’s charm, a tradition that continues today, where a world-record Gothic ivory box can share space with an iconic Banksy.

Nearly two centuries on, these stories remind us that auctions have never been only about objects - they’re about people, passions and the times they lived in. Lyon & Turnbull’s early years set the stage for a house that has always balanced heritage with curiosity, seriousness with surprise.

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