Buttons bought in £40 job lot sell for £61,000

The phrase “someone’s trash is someone’s treasure” came true for one man who landed £48,000 after he stumbled upon a pair of extremely rare buttons which cost him just £40.

Gary Quittenton-Shaw from Rowsley near Matlock, Derbyshire, found the items in a job lot in Derby and after some research, he discovered they were made by Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti for Italian fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli in the 1930s.

The buttons were sold individually at Bonhams auctioneers in Knightsbridge London for £61,000 before fees.

Speaking to the BBC, Mr Quittenton-Shaw said: “I was in disbelief, I’m no antiques expert, I don’t do this for a living.”

The 58-year-old said he bought a selection of items from a job lot which included the buttons from Bamfords Auctioneers in Spondon, Derby in July.

The buttons, which are 1.5 in (4cms) in diameter and depict a woman emerging from an ocean – “caught his eye” and began to carry out some research on his newly acquired items.

“I found similar buttons on a suit which was designed by Elsa Schiaparelli in the 1930s,” he said.

“I thought ‘Wow, they cannot be’ and after my first investigation, it turns out they were made by Alberto Giacometti.”

Mr Giacometti was best known for elongated, and fragile sculptures of the human form throughout the 20th century.

Ms Schiaparelli and Mr Giacometti were introduced to one another by French interior designer Jean-Michel Frank in the early 1930s.

They became lifelong friends and Mr Giacometti designed several key pieces for Ms Schiaparelli, who was often compared, and seen as a rival, to Coco Chanel.

Mr Quittenton-Shaw said experts struggled to value the buttons as there are only a handful of them in the world. The guide price was set at between £5,000 and £8,000.

“They had never come to auction market before and nobody had a value for them,” he said.

His research led him to find similar buttons on a suit which was designed by Ms Schiaparelli in the 1930s and was housed in the Museum of Movie and Industry in Berlin.

Mr Quittenton-Shaw said he emailed the photos of his buttons over to the Alberto Giacometti committee who said they warranted further investigation, but he had to wait for two months until their next meeting for verification.

After meeting with Bonhams auctioneers, the Alberto Giacometti committee said they were genuine and offered to clean the buttons to prepare them for auction.

Mr Quittenton-Shaw told the BBC he could not attend the auction on 16 December in person and decided to watch it online.

“They started off at £5,000 and it was £5,200, £5,400 and I thought well, pretty much this is going to be the bottom estimate and then two bidders really got going.

“When they’d finished, I was like, ‘wow, this is crazy’.”

Asked what he will be spending the money on, Mr Quittenton-Shaw said: “It’s going to be for a rainy day I think. I’m not too sure yet…it’s not quite sunk in.

“We all read about these kind of stories in the press, but you never believe it happens to you.

“The only thing I can say is if you’re looking at auction, just keep on looking – 9.9 times out of 10 it is often a failure, but that one time you can strike lucky.”