Harry the Hammer artwork for sale

I know Witcher was a tin-pot game which they have meant to have made a not very good series based on it..

probebly don't know him cause he is current.. All the 40K films and series they made over the years (yes, the have made a few direct to dvd rubbish and stuff since the year 2000) aren't much good and nothing I recognise in them.. Like how they haven't made a decent DnD film.. though the animated Dragonlance looked like it might have been good but I haven't heard about that in years...

Superman hasn't been much good since that whole 'his body is now made of electric energy' rubbish.

I guess he hasn't been in anything I've seen...
 
Let's get back on topic, we can save discussions of various films, and games and so forth and our individual opinions of their various qualities and deficits to other threads. The point being there is probably a large enough pool of wealthy people who wouldn't mind a bit of unique Warhammer history hanging in their gaming room and can afford to drop £300,000+ on said "talking point". So it may well easily go for the asking price.

I do wonder what has prompted the sale, but of course that's probably far too personal to delve into and would be total speculation anyway. I'm not sure if I owned it I'd be able to sell it myself!

Whilst we're thinking of artwork coming to the market I was wondering if we'd see anything from Tim Pollard's collection hit the auction rooms. My understanding is he had quite a few original pieces and I did wonder if they might be sold by his family after his sad death earlier this year. Of course they may still be, resolving probate on estates in the UK can sometimes be a rather slow process.
 
He also had alot of painted minis, including alot of John Blanche work that way too... wonder if this piece was part of his collection? from what I've seen shown of what he had, it was a very impressive collection
 
No, this was one of Bryan’s acquisitions, was displayed at Foundary with some other pieces in 2021.
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Bryan and Diane Ansell on Instagram: "You may have heard that Harry the Hammer is for sale by live auction at Christie’s London on 11 December 2025 at 4pm. Illustrated by John Blanche in 1983, Harry the Hammer was commissioned by Bryan Ansell as th

726 likes, 11 comments - the_ansells_attic on November 12, 2025: "You may have heard that Harry the Hammer is for sale by live auction at Christie’s London on 11 December 2025 at 4pm. Illustrated by John Blanche in 1983, Harry the Hammer was commissioned by Bryan Ansell as the box cover art...
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Bryan and Diane Ansell on Instagram: "John Blanche reacquainted with Harry the Hammer and Friends. Left to right Lyn & John Blanche and Bryan & Diane Ansell. #johnblanche #bryanansell #dianeansell #citadel #citadelminiatures #GW #gamesworkshop #war

773 likes, 13 comments - the_ansells_attic on December 9, 2021: "John Blanche reacquainted with Harry the Hammer and Friends. Left to right Lyn & John Blanche and Bryan & Diane Ansell. #johnblanche #bryanansell #dianeansell #citadel #citadelminiatures #GW #gamesworkshop #warhammer...
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Eric said:
Well if anyone wants to console themselves they can swing by and see my John Blanche (which fortunately did not cost me six digits) and use my desk (fourth generation of the family to use it) to write a postcard home about the experience! Might even offer you a cuppa and biscuit! :)
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Seriously? Okay, I am more than a little jealous. Next time I'm in the neighborhood I might have to take you up on that sir. See if it improves my drawing skills too.
 
It's not a published piece my knowledge and not Warhammer, but I love it! Titled Under Mirrormere so it's LOTR and done in '75 I think from the inscription if my memory serves. I keep meaning to kindly ask a massive favour of our talented Fighelm if he'd ask John what he might remember about the piece next time they are rolling dice together! The actual drawing is about 8" × 11" ish.

Had to photograph it on the bed otherwise you'd just have the reflection of my gormless mug looking at you :) Anyhow that lives on one wall in the bedroom and across from it is my Ian Miller piece, but maybe that can be another thread lest I lead us off onto a Miller fanboy tangent!

I did re-frame it after purchase since the original frame (same as the Harry one incidentally) was coming apart and I wanted to make sure the glazing offered good UV protection. Obviously I still have the original frame and mount (which is why this mount is slightly un-even so it matches the original size (I can easily put it all back together if I ever want). I left the original second mount in place since it has the pencil notes on it and I didn't want to loose those.

jblanche.jpg

symphonicpoet said:
Next time I'm in the neighborhood I might have to take you up on that sir.
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You're always more than welcome!
 
@Citizen Sade I think an art thread would be quite nice. I'd love to see what people might have!

The listing details are up for the Harry the Hammer piece now, including a nice high resolution scan of the picture which you might enjoy and might have to be the closest we'll get to it!


Still waiting on everyone to send me their spare kidneys so we can flog them and purchase the piece ... come on only a few days to go and it takes time to fence the organs! ;)

On a more serious note it's interesting to see what I'd expect to be UV fading on the painting since the piece extended quite a bit under the mount. Although the colours look more distorted in the bit hidden away than the bit exposed? So I guess it could instead be discolouration from the mount board, but I'd have expected a professional framer to have used an acid free board and for that to be inert. Still nice to see the full image!

The rest of the auction catalogue is of course up now, so if you fancy Tolkien's desk , a bit of video game history or Batman's bike you can have a look! There are some quite interesting lots in there actually. https://www.christies.com/en/auction/groundbreakers-icons-of-our-time-30872/
 
So the auction is done ... wonder who bought it then ?

Looking at https://www.christies.com/en/auction/groundbreakers-icons-of-our-time-30872/ for some reason there isn't a price listed on a few lots, most have a "price realised", but it's absent for this piece. Desk went for £330,200 - ouch. So did Harry not sell or maybe you can opt to keep the sale price private - although I'd assume anyone registered would have a good idea of the sale price! (did anyone register to bid out of curiosity?)
 
Answering my own question it looks like it didn't sell - https://www.christies.com/results/printauctionresults.aspx?saleid=30872&lid=1 Harry was lot 6 and it says anything not listed didn't sell. Presumably it had a reserve on it then that was too high? So I wonder what it's really worth then? I'm still feeling it'd sell in the tens of thousands without too much difficulty, but crossing into the hundreds well maybe pushing it too far?

EDIT - after watching the video below it got up to £280,000, but I guess that didn't break the reserve. Still I guess it might sell privately now to whoever bit and it's not exactly small change.
 
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Brother Meredith said:
Here’s the bidding video
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Ugh... can someone write his script better next time.. cover for 'Warhammer'... nope, Warhammer fantasy Battle.. "Box art".. really? I thought the first boxed rule book set was 2ed.. but either way, it was the rule book cover...
also.. he doesn't come across as... as great auctioneer.. might be but a very much on the dry side.

cousin of mine and family own a local auction house they work at... I would hope they would do better.

Anyway.. interesting.. looks like they had a reserve of higher.. £280k is still pricey I think.. I remember when Warhammer was 40K ^_^; (sorry)
 
fair enough ^_^ Just checked, yeah.. "Warhammer: The Mass Combat Fantasy Role Playing game". Completely forgot they sold the first edition in a boxed set cause I'm a bit iffy on First edition.

Oh, I would debate 'Good schools'. Upper class schools, and public schools but very much debate good ^_^
 
ManicMan said:
Anyway.. interesting.. looks like they had a reserve of higher.. £280k is still pricey I think..
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The reserve was £300k, and so it didn't quite hit that. What Christies will do is liaise with Diane to see if she wants to sell it at that price and work as an intermediary agent. They still get their cut, Diane gets a bunch of cash and someone gets an overpriced piece of art.
 
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