The Horlicks collection of Robert ‘Mouseman’ Thompson furniture was sold at Sworders’ auction for £236,000.

A private collection of more than 30 pieces of Pilkington’s Lancastrian lustre excelled when offered at Lyon & Turnbull (25% buyer’s premium) in Edinburgh on October 10.

“If I was to select just one lot we have sold this year,” says John Albrecht, managing director at Leonard Joel, “it would be the haunting, period photo of Australia’s infamous bushranger, Ned Kelly, taken in 1874 after a boxing match.”

This medal documents a little-known moment in the history of the English Civil War. In 1648, following a revolt in the Parliamentary fleet, a number of ships went to Helvoetsluys in the western Netherlands and were organised as a Royalist squadron by Prince Rupert of the Rhine (1619-82).

Leading New Zealand firm Webb’s – established by Auckland gallery owner Peter Webb in 1976 – became part of Mossgreen in October 2014. Two businessmen and art collectors from the city, Ewen Mackenzie-Bowie and Bruce Qin, rescued the saleroom earlier this year following the collapse of the parent company and a regular calendar of sales is now in operation from new premises in Mount Eden.

Presented to Captain William Lonsdale (1799-1864) in 1842 by the people of Melbourne in recognition of his services to the founding colony, the Lonsdale Silver Presentation has remained in his descendants’ care for 176 years.

After almost a decade of flatlining annual sales and the collapse of Mossgreen, Australia’s auctioneers are vocal about the improving market.

A classical marble bust took an unexpected £129,000 at Sheffield Auction Gallery on September 21.

Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury will sell an important oil by Chinese contemporary artist Yang Fei Yun (b.1954) next month. It comes for sale from the charity established by Body Shop founder Dame Anita Roddick (1942-2007).

Landmark prices were paid for rare large-denomination English coins when Mayfair coin dealership Sovereign Rarities conducted its first auction on September 25.

The pair to the famous ‘Bainbridge vase’ sold in Hong Kong on October 3 for HK$130m (£12.75m) plus premium. Five bidders competed for the lot.

In the long history of beer, the can is a relative newcomer. The first canned beer came with the end of Prohibition in the US – the shiny new light-weight packaging used by Krueger’s in Richmond, Virgina, to market a pasteurised beverage from January 1935.