Robert Bleasdale has decades of experience as an Auctioneer and Director of two international auction houses arranging his first specialist sewing sale in 1989 As an auctioneer, he has achieved a number of world records, including the sale of a rare Elizabethan thimble in 1990 which made £18,000.

Robert establish Bleasdales Ltd in 2009 as an independent specialist in antique sewing sales and since then has grown the business with at least two auctions every year and thousands of collectors and buyers from across the globe.

Bleasdales Ltd 

Bleasdales has operated as an auction agent for 17 years but in Autumn 2026 we moved to a new business model with bi-annual catalogues to include rare sewing antiques and individual collections.

These twice-yearly catalogues include the same broad spectrum of objects from antique thimbles to beautifully crafted sewing boxes that were in our auctions but each item will be sold at a fixed price. 

Bleasdales we use our extensive expertise to source sewing items from all over the world, many originating from we always strive to include the best qualitypieces.

Happily it still remains true that one of the great attractions of sewing tools and accessories is there are plenty of areas of collecting that are still very affordable for new buyers - do take the time to look at our Sewing Tools and Accessories Pages which will give you more information about different specialist collecting fields.