This obituary in the Telegraph of the antiques dealer John Hobbs resonated with an encounter I had with him in 2003. I had an item which I wanted to sell and based on photographs, he sent someone up by plane to Edinburgh to look at it; subsequently he made me an offer which was good for 30 days. As it was a fixture in my listed building I needed permission from the local authority to remove it. I wrote back to John Hobbs explaining this. The permission duly arrived from the authority, but beyond the expiry of his offer. Given the obvious interest from him, I thought I should shop around in Pimilco for others who might be interested. And interested they were, also sending up their experts to view it.
As I was beyond the offer date, but given the other interests, I reverted to Hobbs to see if he would extend his previous offer and can well recall his irritation that I was "hawking it around London". We both declined to do business, but I was able to conclude a successful sale through another equally well-known dealer. As the obituary states...But he understood when and how to apply menace, and was a doughty litigant...there was certainly something of the night about him, but happily my encounter was without smoking barrels.
Image from New York Social Diary
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