A 1920s Stepney Tyres enamel sign has sold for a record-breaking £83,780 in a UK automobilia auction hosted by Cheffins on 21 March 2026.
Measuring five-by-four feet, the sign sold for more than eight times its £10,000 estimate. The staggering hammer price is understood to be a record price for an automobilia piece at a UK auction and it is said to have been won by a British collector.
The record-breaking sign came from a single-owner collection of more than 400 items – ranging from enamel advertising signage to bicycles. The items were assembled by an anonymous Cambridgeshire-based collector, and had been stored in two barns away from public view for more than 20 years.
Other big results included £21,240 for a Nestlé Farine Lactée sign, sold to a German collector, and £4130 for a double-sided Essolube sign, purchased by a Dutch buyer. A Jeyes’ Fluid sign crossed the block for £3422, a Wellsaline Motor Lubricants calendar achieved £3068 and a Firestone Tyres map of Scotland brought in £2596.
Beyond the vintage automotive signage, an 1879 Coventry penny-farthing bicycle sold for £5192, while a 1917 Douglas 350cc motorcycle went for £8496.
‘This sale encompassed what was truly one of the most exciting barn-find secret collections of automobilia having been seen on the market for decades. We were delighted by the response to the sale, and the prices achieved far exceeded our expectations,’ said Cheffins director Tom Godsmark. ‘These pieces were certainly some of the most significant we’ve seen come to auction in the UK to date, and we were privileged to offer them to the market’
Cheffins will offer a further 400 automobilia lots at its Cambridge Vintage Sale on 24-25 April, followed by its next standalone automobilia auction on 14 June.
