ROBERT DALGETY AND SOTHEBY’S 
1983 - 2003

I joined Sotheby’s in the autumn of 1983 constantly travelling throughout Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Avon and parts of Wiltshire acting on behalf of Sotheby’s clients in all areas and all subjects.  From time to time, senior colleagues from the specialised departments would come down for a few days, and in addition to our more general work, we would on those occasions concentrate on a single subject in detail, giving clients the opportunity of seeing the top specialist in a given field, without the need to leave the house.  We called these forays “Sweeps”.

On my return to London in 1987, I further developed what I had learned ‘on the road’ and in the earlier days of my career, and was immediately thrown into a non-stop programme of written Insurance Valuations and Probate Valuations, as we then called Capital Transfer Tax Valuations or Inheritance Tax Valuations, principally throughout London and the UK.  From about 1990, this enterprise mushroomed to include every corner – and every single country – of Continental Europe.  I was part of a unique small team of Valuers who gave Inventories and Valuations of the Contents of many of the principal Country Houses, Castles, Palaces & Schlößer, both here and abroad, many of them household names, and many whose Contents had never been seen before outside the family.  This level of experience gained over such a long period is now at your disposal.