Auction Preview: Leski Auctions, Melbourne, The Michael & Valerie Gregg Collection, 24 March 2024
When hearts and minds from across the globe unite as one, the results can have a lasting impact on all those around them.
So it was for Michael and Valerie Gregg – he from Guernsey in the Channel Islands and she from the New South Wales town of Wagga Wagga.
Both shared a passion for collecting and, over 65 years, built an eclectic collection of silver, Australian furniture, ceramics, jewellery and pottery unrivalled anywhere in the world.
Despite their totally different backgrounds – Valerie, born in 1934, became a nurse at Wagga Base Hospital before working and travelling extensively throughout Europe and North America – their paths crossed in the small northern New South Wales town of Brewarrina, population 1000, when Michael, who was two years younger, took a job as a jackaroo on a remote but nearby cattle station.