We have just added a batch of very desirable maritime collectibles to the website. They can also be viewed in our shop at 9 South Street, Fowey.
While lighting is our primary love, their nautical nature means we can also branch out into maritme antiques. Seeking treasures among the world’s auction houses and boatyards is one of the pleasures of our job.
We’re going to focus on three items we recently acquired, which were all salvaged from a boatyard in Penryn, outside Falmouth. The boatyard has since been demolished and a restaurant is emerging in its place. Maritime history, be damned.
There are two compasses, both dating circa 1950s, but very different.
The Kelvin White Constellation compass is a beauty to behold, housed in a gleaming plastic hemisphere and caged with an aluminium body. You can’t help but wonder about the boat it came from and the eyes that must have studied it, out at sea.
The Kelvin & Hughes lifeboat compass looks far older – though they are roughly the same age – being made of brass, with a pleasingly antique demeanour. This would have been stored aboard a far larger vessel’s lifeboat, to guide the way to land should an accident have befallen the mother ship.
Last though not least comes our brass-inlaid handleless antique mahogany ship’s wheel. Feasibly 200 years old, the lack of handles makes this a really unusual find.
