Having been engulfed by a banking crisis and smothered by financial meltdown generally, many of us expected classic auctions to do badly, at least in the short-term. I have to hold my hand up and say that my own pessimistic self was one such predictor of gloom. Well, the expected doom never came, which was good news, even for one of Scrooge's understudies like me, because auctions such as the H&H affairs in Buxton have always been a favourite day out for me.
In fact, instead of crashing and burning, these sales thrived, possibly as increasing numbers of punters realised that cash which is used to buy
