A bidders perspective of the Bonhams auction, "Important Pioneer, Vintage and Collectors' Motorcycles and Related Memorabilia Stafford, Staffordshire County Showground, 24 Apr 2011"......

When details of sale of Stanley Woods memorabilia at the Bonham's auction #19163 of "Important Pioneer, Vintage and Collectors' Motorcycles and Related Memorabilia Stafford, Staffordshire County Showground, 24 Apr 2011" showed up, I decided after viewing the stuff to takes steps to bid.
Now I live in Sydney, Australia, the auction was half a world away in the UK...as well there is a 10 hour time zone difference and the auction was on Easter Sunday.....
My first grand daughter was to be christened that day with a family gathering with friends afterwards...
Looked a trifle difficult....but with the wonders of the internet and the time zones playing into my hand...the auction commenced at 7pm Sunday night, Sydney time, I was "in with a chance"...
Well hope springs eternal.....
I sorted out the bidding and nervous as to getting "dropped off", I had three computers in operation, each logged on via a different search engine...Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer...
On the night I had little difficulty with any....
Looked like the NASA space facility at Houston monitoring a shuttle launch....
Well what happened....??
I succeeded in securing one item, missed three and was the top bidder in another that obviously had a reserve....
The bidding via the internet was acceptable, although a little difficult with bidding proceeding briskly...thats how I seemed to "miss out", although to be fair one never knows the final bidding of those bidding against you and for all I know they may have had a greater resolve than me...
All up it seemed there were plenty of people out there with deep pockets....
So let's view the auction up to when I closed off at item 235 after some 3 hours watching the drama unfold....
You can see the complete results with prices at...
http://www.bonhams.com/EUR/sale/19163/1/ 
Apologies for the quality of the images, which were scanned directly from the Bonhams catalogue/report...and I acknowledge  Bonhams for their use.

Lot 2, a Vincent Black Shadow speedo went for £1080 including the 20% buyers premium. This I thought was a bit pricey....

lot 14, Vincent petrol tank £1200 incl.BP......

lot 15,  Vincent girdraulic forks £3720 incl.BP

lot 45, selection of Amal carbs. £576 incl.BP...seemed too much for what was there, although one was a TT carb.

lot 73, Bonnikson speedo set £780 incl.BP...likely fair as it had a Bonnikson drive gearbox and external gear ring set.

lot 88, 1927 British Anzani 1076cc V twin engine £4800 incl.BP...
"V twin" engines pull big bucks...

lot 89, 1922 Barr & Stroud 980cc V twin sleeve valve engine £5280 incl.BP...

lot 92, OEC Duplex petrol tank £1500 incl.BP...did somebody really want this...from memory it was a "one bid job".....

lot 102, Velocette literature £780 incl.BP...this is one I started bidding on, but got left in the dust....the price surprised me and I'm a Velo man and a literature collector.

lot 104, PhD thesis on Veloce Ltd £288 incl.BP...this seemed a good buy as I had to repair the copy I borrowed years back from the UK and it cost AUD$195 for the repair....

lot 115, "TT Special" books,£240 incl.BP..this was a bargain and somehow I "stuffed up" with the internet bidding as I was chasing it and it went to "others"...

lot 131, bound 1910-1913 of "The MotorCycle" ,£2520 incl.BP...gulp you don't realise the cost of these "MotorCycle" magazines today....

lot 149, Edwardian & Vintage motorcycle catalogues,£1320 incl.BP...boy these early catalogue prices staggered me...

lot 158, assorted motorcycle books.,£144 incl.BP...boy was this a bargain....

lot 169, 1937 Brough Superior catalogues,£600 incl.BP...one original catalogue , the other two were repros...phew BS stuff is pricey...

lot 172, photo of Geo Brough and T.E. Lawrence on George 6th,£480 incl.BP...I said BS stuff was pricey...one photo!

lot 186, quantity of motorcycle photos.,£1440 incl.BP...original photos command money...

lot 188, the Ken Jones photo collection.,£22,800 incl.BP....seems a lot, but then there were some 8000 images, so thats only £2.85 a photo...

lot 194, Mike Hailwood's 1967 IOM TT silver replica for 1st place, IOM Senior TT.,£8400 incl.BP.

lot 203, Stanley Woods diaries and memoirs.,£960 incl.BP...these I was bidding on, but they were more than I could justify without a good look....

lot 218, letter from his mother to Stanley Woods ,£1680 incl.BP....this was like a bolt from the blue....from memory the bidding started over £1000...one letter...

lot 229A,   Stanley Woods photos 1932 to 1936 period,£1080 incl.BP

..finally DQ scored a winning bid.....
lot 233, Stanley Woods photos of his Australian trip 1936-37,£384 incl.BP.
This was important for the Velocette historians in Australia...
Stanley with wife Mildred visited here from December 1936 to around March 1937, bringing two works Velocettes with him, both rigid framed models, likely 1935 stuff. 
A 350 and 500 SOHC "dog-kennel" engined type.
The 350 is still in Perth, WA, but the 500 was sold to an American serviceman during WW2 where it went, much later to be purchased by the Wassell family..of the big motorcycle accessory firm in the Birmingham, UK area.
Sadly it was on display in the National Motorcycle Museum at Coventry and was  destroyed in the fire....but eventually it rose from the ashes, phoenix like following an extensive restoration by Ivan and Graham Rhodes and helpers.
But it is still a replica...the original was cremated...
Look forward to receiving the album with the hope there are a "gem" or two not seen before...

lot 234, Stanley Woods film archive, not sold,£1500-2000 estimate.

Well I thought I had this one, as I was the highest bidder, but is soon came up as unsold...likely there was a reserve price on it that we didn't exceed....

The difficulty with internet bidding...I'm sure there was no indication it carried a reserve...not that it may have made any difference...