The lots emanate from the estate of the late Gerald Flack who collected items from the Union-Castle Line and other rare nautical memorabilia.
Bidding should be keen for pieces of silver and silver plate tableware from shipping lines. Also on offer will be a Union-Castle Cape Town cash register (first entry January 1939 and the last September 1942), captains’ chairs, ships’ clocks, bells, works of art and prints and a model of the ship The Africa Star. There are also menus, flags, a commode, porcelain and a first-class dining room chair salvaged from SS Thermopylae, which struck rocks in thick fog off Sea Point in September 1899 while sailing home to the UK from Australia.
Another unusual item catalogued is a loadicator, an instrument used to assess, for example, whether ships’ loads complied with permissible limits.
The collection is on view until Wednesday at 3pm at 43 Church Street, the venue for Thursday’s auction. The catalogue is at www.ashbeysgalleries.co.za. For more details email [email protected] or call 0214238060.