"Another item at the Tennants sale that cannot have been an easy lot to estimate came from a separate source – a brass dog collar which had once belonged to the poet Lord Byron’s beloved Newfoundland dog, Boatswain. The dog died of rabies in 1808 after being bitten by another dog in Mansfield, and the grief-stricken Byron erected a monument at Newstead Abbey and composed his famous Epitaph to a Dog. The link to Byron was strengthened by the fact that a similar collar can be found in the Newstead Abbey Collection and documentation that came with the lot tracing the item back to its original sale certified by Byron's gamekeeper's widow. The auctioneers plumped for a £3000-5000 pitch, but this level was easily surpassed on the day as it was knocked down at £14,000 to a buyer in the room."
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