From house clearances to rare coins – Cheshire valuer Adrian Byrne shares his remarkable finds

Here Adrian talks to Inspire Cheshire editor Lucy Mason about his 40-year career in the industry and some of the remarkable finds he has come across – including a recent coin found in a house clearance that made the headlines. Adrian said:

In this job you never know what you’re going to find and over the years I’ve been privileged to have discovered, valued and sold a number of cracking items.

I made a name for myself early on in my career when I discovered a very important pair of Royal French vases in a Suffolk farmhouse. The vases represent the height of luxury, artistry and technical skill in European ceramics. This pair had remained undiscovered for over a century.

I sold them for £560k which, at the time, was the highest ever price achieved at an auction outside of London. As a result, I was lured back to Cheshire, eventually establishing my own business, Byrne’s (Chester) Ltd, until in April 2025 the business was acquired by Rogers Jones & Co Auctioneers.

The finds continue as last month we sold an extremely rare Victorian coin which was discovered in a house clearance in Gwynedd, North Wales.

The rare Victorian ‘Una and the Lion’ five sovereign coin was estimated to fetch between £70k and £120k, at our auction in Chester. Bidding started at £40,000 and went swiftly up to £100,000 with interest in France against two UK-based bidders before finally settling at a £110,000 hammer price.

The coin was designed by engraver William Wyon, and features a young Queen Victoria, just two years after she was crowned. The other side features the young monarch as Una from Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, accompanied by a lion symbolising England.

Only a very limited number of these coins are believed to have been produced, with estimates ranging between 200 and 300 in total. As a result, they rarely appear at auction and are highly sought after by collectors across the globe. The current world record price for a Una and the Lion coin stands at $1.44m, for what was considered a pristine example.

It’s the most wonderful British coin and is considered the most beautiful portrait sculpted of Queen Victoria.

Finding it amongst a consignment of mixed gold coins was tremendously exciting; it truly is a work of art in its own right.

In amongst the regular valuations of quite mundane silver, gold, jewellery, and other decorative items you do stumble across treasures. I suppose that it’s this anticipation that drives us.

I recall an elderly lady popped into reception once with a teapot with its lid taped to it. She wanted to sell it because according to her “the lid kept falling off”.

My eyes widened at the sight of the piece as I realised it was a rare Italian Vezzi – very experimental early porcelain dating to the 1720s. She literally had no idea of its value and was rather stunned when the hammer finally fell at £25k.

The piece can now be seen in the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

Here in Chester, we made a rare discovery in a local attic of a Chippendale period mirror from the mid-18^th century. Unfortunately, it wasn’t in a great condition and we had to put it back together in order to photograph it for the auction catalogue. It again was a rare find that we were delighted to sell for £80k.

It’s easy to become complacent in our business considering all the items that are not so rare or valuable that clutter our homes. However, it’s often wiser to look then look again.

Mixed consignments of crockery are commonplace and in today’s market often have little value. However, a recent box of miscellany unearthed at the bottom, lying unwrapped and in perfect condition, an incredibly rare Worcester tankard. It was just one of only nine known to be in existence and dated from 1753. I sold that one for £4,800. It always gives me a buzz when we find items like this.

Tastes have changed over my career and we’re constantly re-evaluating the market place as our demographic changes over time.

It could be Pokémon cards, Harry Potter books, vinyl music, comics and even tech items. Early computers are starting to come up at auction now and people want them.

Remarkably, an exceptionally rare Pokémon card sold for £360k, not with us sadly but who’s to say it won’t be found in the next consignment.

We recently had a timed auction devoted entirely to 5,000 plastic model kits that we discovered in a house in Wirral. Whole rooms were stacked with models of ships, tanks and planes all in their original packaging and unopened. It was incredible. Forty years ago, the interest for these kits wouldn’t have been there, but today they are extremely popular.

We’re seeing lots of interest in watches today too. At the higher end of the market, someone might be happy to pay £72k for a Rolex Platinum Daytona, as we saw last year. But you can buy a vintage Omega for £600 at auction as a more affordable alternative.

Unfortunately, as our tastes change then so does the market place. Antique furniture is now very affordable and it is undeniably good quality so it will last and last. Georgian and Victorian furniture is often significantly cheaper than buying new from the high street.

We are only ever custodians of what we own, and there is a romance to antiques with the heritage behind a piece – who made it, who owned it and where it has been.

The process of valuation has changed. Email valuations from photographs that people have sent in occupy a lot of time. Thanks to devices like Google Search clients often come to us with a pre-conceived idea of identity and value. However, this can often be incorrect or misguided and it’s our role to apply knowledge and experience to manage expectations.

The process of auctioneering is changing too. The market to which we sell is now global and immediate. Collectors are buying remotely from all corners of the globe. It’s a far cry from when I first started as a porter, assisting the auctioneer who would be selling from an upturned crate rain or shine to a handful of weathered old dealers.

Today, thanks to the internet, auctions have worldwide exposure and due to the systems in place we can track the bidding, whether it’s from China or elsewhere. It’s great to see the increased activity when we offer an item of immense rarity like the Una and the Lion coin.