Latest News Articles by Tom Derbyshire
Shanghai municipal medal shoots past estimate in a popular collecting market
02 June 2025A lot offering a Shanghai Municipal Jubilee Medal, November 17, 1893, proved so appealing that it sold at five times the top estimate.
Touch of Finland taken to Manhattan comes to auction
02 June 2025In 1948, Finnish designer Paavo Tynell (1890-1973) undertook one of the most ambitious projects of his career.
Nuts about novelty silver: Crichton claret jug nets £36,000
26 May 2025This bright-eyed and bushy-tailed claret jug designed in 1882 by Alexander Crichton sold at a hammer price of £36,000 at Tennants of North Yorkshire.
First part of spectacular Traveller Collection roars into the saleroom
26 May 2025The first part of an auction series offering a remarkable array of coins buried in Europe for over 50 years to prevent them from being looted during Nazi invasion kicked off with a focus on British and colonial milled coins from Charles II to George V.
Photos show Maria Callas on and off stage
26 May 2025Stelios Galatopoulos (1932-2022) was a respected Greek music critic (Cypriot-born) who was based in London.
Casas creates a Catalan classic poster
26 May 2025Like Toulouse Lautrec, Ramon Casas y Carbo (1866-1932) was not only an avant-garde artist but a master poster maker and graphic designer.
Knife was wielded by an SAS founder who played billiards with ‘Paddy’ Mayne amid battle carnage
26 May 2025Shown here is a 1st Pattern Fairbairn Sykes fighting knife by Wilkinson, London that belonged to Major Charles George Gibson ‘Pat’ Riley DCM (1915-99), one of the founding members of ‘L’ Detachment, SAS Brigade in 1941.
Special medals of special forces leader
26 May 2025Woolley & Wallis is offering what it hails as a collection of military medals given to “one of Britain’s most distinguished soldiers of the 20th century”.
The 1932 Battle of Britain: Newcastle Utd v Rangers football programme nets £6500
26 May 2025One-off football ‘super cup’ style ties are nothing new, as a very much in demand programme offered at Telford saleroom Mullock Jones (20.5% buyer’s premium) demonstrated.
It just gets better for Spurs – Euro trophy win and success scored with auction bid
26 May 2025Now celebrating on-the-field success thanks to a 1-0 victory against Manchester United in the Europa League final on May 21, Spurs also came top in the saleroom seven days earlier.
Manchester football derby plays out in the saleroom
26 May 2025The fierce football rivalry between the Sky Blues and Red Devils led to a competition not on the pitch but on the rostrum thanks to the Graham Budd (24% buyer’s premium) two-day sale dubbed An Auction of Two Halves.
Excitement builds as Norman Wilkinson railway poster comes to auction
26 May 2025Terence Cuneo’s 'Giants Refreshed' poster for the LNER showing Pacific steam locomotives 'In the Doncaster Locomotive Works' is a well-known work.
Pick of the Week: Vulliamy’s public clocks
19 May 2025Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy (1780-1854) was clockmaker to George III and also to The Prince Regent, later George IV.
US library purchases include letters on 17th century British Atlantic slave trade originally sold at UK auction
19 May 2025An American library has announced the purchase of six “exceptional collections” including letters shedding light on the early British Atlantic slave trade that were originally sold at a UK auction.
Witness to Napoleon’s death: fascinating letters emerge from a family archive
19 May 2025Letters found in family archive include first-hand accounts from St Helena in 1821
007 gold-plated 2CV model motors its way up to £2600
19 May 2025A Citroën 2CV toy car is not quite as glamorous as a Lotus Esprit, even when the full-size version helps to save James Bond in an epic chase.
Minerva with Medusa shield stands tall after £20,000 bid
19 May 2025Matthew Boulton’s inventory of stock in 1782 lists “1 small figure of Minerva”, according to Nicholas Goodison’s Ormolu: the Work of Matthew Boulton, 1974.
