Latest News Articles by Roland Arkell
Union Castle sign sails to UK’s second highest price
14 July 2025A large maritime-themed advertising sign featuring the passenger liner Capetown Castle sold for £22,000 at bottles and advertising specialists BBR Auctions on July 6. The sale, part of the Summer National collecting event in Elsecar, near Barnsley, featured some of the best finds in this burgeoning collecting hobby.
Pick of the week: Renowned collector Dailey adds ear of a war horse to his purchases
14 July 2025The latest Homes & Interiors sale at Sworders included an extraordinary and highly personal relic from the Waterloo battlefield: a silver-mounted inkwell made from the ear of a war horse.
‘Critter’ bookends and Doulton mask make for lively sale
14 July 2025Back in July 2019, Lawrences in Crewkerne set a new high for a Mouseman carving when a pair of elephant bookends by master carver Stan Dodds (1928-2012) sold at £10,000.
Dealer's collection yields ‘white glove’ sale in Sussex
14 July 2025Battle saleroom Burstow & Hewett (20% buyer’s premium) recently sold the ‘contents of a Sussex manor house’ – the lifetime collection of a local antiques collector and dealer.
Set of gold dinars coming to auction reveal that 77 is the magic number
14 July 2025On July 23 London-based specialist coin and medal auction house Morton & Eden is offering a complete set of 56 Umayyad gold dinars dating from years 77 to 132 in the Hijra calendar (696-750AD).
RW Martin pond full of life at a £15,000 hammer price
14 July 2025This stoneware pond by Robert Wallace Martin, measuring 6ft 6in (2m) across, comprises 40 architectural elements, each incised with fish and aquatic creatures among water weeds.
Rare full set of Dutch West Indies views emerges in Holland
14 July 2025This image of Paramaribo on the banks of the Suriname River is one of the 18 lithographic views of the Dutch West Indies after Jacob Eduard van Heemskerck van Beest (1828-94).
John Ward group tests the market at Mallams
14 July 2025A recent sale of Modern Art & Design at Mallams (25% buyer’s premium) in Oxford included a local collection of 21 pots by John Ward (1938-2023).
Sign of the times: Union Castle enamel advert sails to UK’s second highest price
11 July 2025A large maritime-themed advertising sign featuring the passenger liner Capetown Castle sold for £22,000 at bottles and advertising specialists BBR Auctions on July 6.
Sex Pistols and punk: a poster debut makes a huge sum at auction
07 July 2025A rare poster heralding the birth of the British punk movement hammered for a massive £43,000 (plus 24% buyer’s premium) at Omega Auctions on July 1.
Spartiate’s Jack flies once more at £850,000
07 July 2025Still bearing the physical scars of battle, a monumental Union Jack flown by HMS Spartiate at the Battle of Trafalgar led Christie’s Exceptional Sale in London.
France protects US from the British lion
07 July 2025A fine example of the Libertas Americana silver medal is estimated to fetch between £50,000-80,000 at Anderson & Garland’s Fine Silver and Objects of Vertu auction in Newcastle on July 22.
Wedgwood hails an American spy
07 July 2025A rarity at a recent Woolley & Wallis (26% buyer’s premium) ceramics and glass sale was a late 18th century Wedgwood basalt intaglio seal, featuring a profile portrait of the notorious American spy Captain Nathan Hale (1755-76) beside the reversed inscription 'My Country!!!'.
Spot the goalie competition: toy footballers score at auction
07 July 2025Footballers were among the very first of the Britains hollowcast lead ‘civilian’ figures.
Interest lodged in Beilby tumblers
07 July 2025Among the great Beilby discoveries of recent times was the emergence - from two separate sources across 14 years - of six small firing glasses decorated in red, yellow and white enamel with Masonic emblems.
Liverpool and Limehouse: Maurice Hillis ceramics collection appears at Bonhams
07 July 2025Ceramics expert’s collection sold at auction included notable pieces made on Merseyside but also a Limehouse cup that proved very popular with bidders
William Billingsley: artistic genius and utter rogue
07 July 2025The great Georgian porcelain decorator and technician William Billingsley (1758-1828) was that recognisable type: artistic genius and downright rogue.
Flag flown at Battle of Trafalgar brings spirited bidding at Christie's
03 July 2025Still bearing the physical scars of battle, a monumental Union Jack flown by HMS Spartiate at the Battle of Trafalgar led Christie’s Exceptional Sale in London on July 1.
Magdalene Odundo takes British studio pottery to a new high at Sotheby’s auction
02 July 2025British studio pottery moved into new financial territory at the end of June with the sale of a vase by Dame Magdalene Odundo (b.1950) for £570,000.
‘When dealers co-operate, great things can happen’
30 June 2025Paxton House in Berwick-upon-Tweed has been reunited with an important Regency sofa it had lost for a century.