Another One Of Those 'Good Luck' Story's That We Like So Much

as lot 128 went under the hammer,

at Tennants auction rooms in Leyburn, North Yorkshire, the lot in question was a blue and white bottle vase, made for the Qianlong Emperor around 1730, the seller’s grandmother, Lady Ethel Margaret Stronge, left the vase to his mother Mrs Rose Ethel Richardson of Tynan Abbey, County Armagh, Northern Ireland, who gave it to her son, Lady Ethel Margaret married Sir James Henry Stronge who joined the diplomatic service in London in 1879 and served in Peking in the same year, He went on to serve in the Supreme Court in Shanghai in 1885 before working in Central America from 1897 to 1907, the vase was brought to Britain by the seller’s family more than a century ago,

the antique was discovered by Rodney Tennant, from Tennants Auctioneers, during a routine house call to value the contents and it sold to a bidder in Hong Kong, the 40cm high bottle-shaped vase, bearing the mark of 18th century Emperor Yongzheng, was conservatively estimated at £20,000-£30,000, it went for, wait for it, £950,000, good luck or what!