of scratch built Historic Locomotives in Gauge 1 and Larger Gauges‏

H&H partners Dreweatts & Bloomsbury Auctions to offer Pete Waterman's £1m Collection of Locomotives

The Transport SaleThursday 16th April, 6pm UK timeEly House, 37 Dover Street, London, W1S 4NJOnline catalogue available at www.dreweatts.com

In this auction of the Pete Waterman Collection buyers are being given the opportunity to purchase some of the exceptional model engineering works of art built to the very highest standards in nickel silver and brass by some of the best gauge one and larger gauge model builders who have ever lived. Geoff Holt and George MacKinnon-Ure spent the last 20 years of their lives building these fine models for Pete Waterman and put every effort into producing the finest detailed locomotives, linked with a life time spent developing their hand skills and combining these with a life time of knowledge of the full size railway locomotives. As Pete recently said; ‘I never ever thought about cost when commissioning these models – it was all about true quality, which ultimately is the only thing that matters. No expense was spared in achieving the very best outcomes – I see these models as being akin to works of great art’. When you look at the models being offered for sale you will realise they are indeed works of art with in many cases periods of up to four years were required to research each engine and obtain drawings, build patterns and then to hand build each locomotives.

As well as this fine collection of gauge one models the sale includes four larger scale model locomotives by Nottingham based builder David Aitken who is held, by many, in the same league as the famous builders mentioned above. He is regarded by many as the best ever builder in these gauges and ranked up there with the famous names of Harry Powell, Louis Raper and of course James Stanley Beeson of Ringwood who is possibly better known for his fine 0 gauge works of art.

In Pete Waterman’s opinion there has never been a model builder better than George Mackinnon-Ure, he worked solely for Pete for the last fifteen years of his life building the very fine models being offered for sale in this auction. In Pete Waterman’s own words ‘only rarely are individual items of comparable quality available on the open market, but never has an entire collection of this scale, quality and provenance been offered for sale’ also he quoted ‘this collection has truly been a passion, and my fervent wish is that the new owners get as much enjoyment from them as I have had over the past 25 to 30 years since I started’. Pete Waterman will never give up his lifetime passion for railways and will continue to enjoy using some of his full size Great Western tank locomotives. He also plans to concentrate on building his 7mm (O gauge) layout of his beloved Leamington Spa station and surrounding track on which he spends most weekends building with a group of friends and fellow enthusiasts.

The 56 lot strong collection arrived at Mallett Antiques last week and will be on view throughout March until going under the hammer on 16th April.