Bidders go Ginger Nuts for enamel advertising sign

A small enamel sign advertising the much-loved ginger nut biscuit sold for a tasty £831 last week in Norfolk.

Measuring a compact 46x47cm (18×8½in), the sign had been expected to make just £30-£60 at Hansons Auctioneers’ Norfolk saleroom.

Designed by the biscuit maker Huntley & Palmers, it features John Ginger a character created in 1933 to boost sales.

In it he is clad as a 17th-century Quaker reflecting the company’s religious origins. The sign also includes the tag line ‘There are none so good’.

Auctioneer Mark Nelson-Griffiths said: “It really was the sweet smell of success and we were delighted to see the advertising sign find a new home. There is an army of Hunter & Palmers collectors attracted by the firm’s colourful and nostalgic advertising material, including its biscuit tins.”

Huntley & Palmers started life in 1822 as a small bakery in Reading. Its founder, Joseph Huntley, was a Quaker businessman whose firm became one of the world’s largest biscuit manufacturers by the late 19th century.

In 1910, the firm supplied Captain Scott’s expedition to the Antarctic and Henry Stanley set off to find Dr Livingstone armed with Huntley & Palmers biscuits.

A warder in Reading jail was even said to smuggle ginger nuts into the famous prison to help Oscar Wilde’s digestion.

By the late 1830s Huntley & Palmers produced 20 different kinds of biscuit (rising to 400 by 1900). Fancy Rout Cakes cost two shillings per pound with the budget-friendly ginger nut just eight pence per pound.

In 2023, ginger nuts topped a poll of the UK’s most favourite biscuit beating Rich Tea into second place, followed by a plain Digestive and a Custard Cream, while shortbread making up the top five.

The name is a shortening of the original gingerbread nut, reflecting the fact the first biscuits were smaller and rounder than their modern equivalent.