Coincidental to the opening this week of the Thrupiece Museum of Science and Technology's "Professor Thrupiece the Modernist" exhibition, Trickett's Cross Auction House "My Grandmother Threw One of Those Away: It Was Useless" has announced the impending sale of an item once believed to have been owned and worn by Professor Thrupiece: his 1938 Ermex wrist watch.
Testimony to the Professor's life-long love affair with Bakelite "a modernist material of which I heartily approve", he confided to his private journal in 1994) and possibly a gift from an American admirer (To PBT in memory of the earth moving S-LS), this highly intimate item is one of several personal effects which are believed to have "disappeared" from the Professor's Swiss hotel room in 2004. Its whereabouts have remained a mystery ever since, but a spokesman for Trickett's Cross Auction House My Grandmother Threw One of Those Away: It Was Useless, Anne Teek insisted the watch had "good provenance" having been placed with them for sale by a "well-known" person of doubtful reputation said to have been close to the Professor towards the end of his life. The identity of the woman -named only as Ms S-*S - remains shadowy.
A spokesperson for The Thrupiece Museum of Science and Technology said that the Museum was anxious to acquire the object if at all possible but doubted they would be able to match the likely asking price of €5 (or 22,344 post Drexit £s). A public appeal for money is - as always - more than likely.
Details of the auction can be found here.
A 1938 Ermex Bakelite wrist watch said to have been the property of Professor Thrupiece is set to command a significant sum at auction this week.