An unusual belt buckle by the Parisian jeweller and glass maker René Lalique which had been worn by the vendor throughout her nursing career has sold for £19,000 at a North Yorkshire auction.

An original nameplate for what is probably the most famous steam engine in the world, the Flying Scotsman, has sold for a record price of £64,500 (plus 12% buyer’s premium).

C&T Auctioneers of Kent is launching antiques and collectors sales, with its first taking place on April 3 next year.

When Alan Wardle’s niece searched online for family history she uncovered his father’s long-lost First World War presentation pocket watch coming up at auction.

Before the Iraq invasions in 1991 and 2003 Britain was involved in military operations in the region in both world wars.

The new terrors of the First World War also encompassed gas. The initial major attack was launched on the Eastern Front by the Germans in January 1915, then on the Western Front at Ypres three months later against French colonial troops.

In this year also marking the centenary of the RAF, Bosleys’ (20% buyer’s premium) fourth annual sale of aviation collectables on September 13, held in conjunction with (and at) sister auction house Marlows in Stafford, included a large number of related items.

If anything sums up the sense of slaughter that came from the British experience of the First World War and how that affected so many families, it is a lot coming up in Bonhams’ November 21 Medals, Bonds, Banknotes and Coins auction.

The centenary of the Armistice has been marked by the appearance of some poignant lots at auction revealing the human cost.

As soon as the devastating power of machine guns in the First World War became clear, the British Army abandoned its earlier policy of attaching a section of just two guns to each infantry battalion or cavalry regiment.

C&T Auctioneers’ (20% buyer’s premium) November 6 sale titled After the Great War Centenary also marked the final slice of a three-part offering of what specialist Matthew Tredwen called “one of the finest collections of First World War German militaria to have been sold at auction in the UK”.

Such was the scale of the Great War that the Cameronians regiment alone raised 27 battalions from 1914-18.

British Empire soldiers included more than a million Indian Army troops serving overseas.

The ‘heroic age’ of Polar Exploration coincided with the First World War. Shackleton’s perilous 1914-17 expedition was conducted against the backdrop of war in the northern hemisphere, while other earlier Polar explorers found themselves caught up in the conflict.