Collectables

Despite the brief cataloguing of lot 129 in the Ellis Willis & Beckett (21.5% buyer’s premium) sale, the £4200 hammer price on February 17 indicated that bidders had fought it out for something special.

A piece of British naval history and polar exploration history appeared at Millea Bros (25% buyer’s premium) in Boonton, New Jersey.

Following Operation Barbarossa, Germany’s invasion of Russia, Winston Churchill proposed the Arctic Convoys to deliver supplies to the Soviet Union via Iceland.

With the recent retirement of Allard Schierenberg and Jeanne van Bruggen, the remaining stock of Dutch dealership Antiquariaat Junk will be sold at auction.

The Private Library Book Company is offering for sale online the library of John Russell Taylor (1935-2025), a collection of over 20,000 books, many by the renowned author and critic himself.

Inaugural Forum standalone auction achieves impressive results in south London

A Mouseman single wardrobe with panelled adzed decoration sold for £7400 against a guide of £4000-6000 at Summersgills (18% buyer’s premium) in Easingwold, North Yorkshire.

A decade ago V&A curators used an X-ray to discover what was inside a vintage Christmas cracker made in the 1920s by the Tom Smith company without having to actually pull it. This revealed a small chocolate.

Contrasting contraptions both sell for strong five-figure sums in salerooms north and south

It has been estimated there are between 500 and 1000 different types of marble-in-neck mineral water bottles based on the famous 1872 patent by Hiram Codd.

While two early Märklin carousels went round and round, the bids at Hohenstaufen (24.5% buyer’s premium) in Göppingen went up and up.

The Wurlitzer Company was founded in the US in 1856 and the Centennial 2000 jukebox model was created to commemorate the centenary anniversary.

A recent sale at Halls (24% buyer’s premium) in Shrewsbury included an exceptional Swiss music box: a Sublime Harmony orchestral music box by George Baker & Co, Geneva.

A first edition of Agatha Christie’s Five Little Pigs published by The Crime Club (Collins), London 1942, was consigned to Wessex Auction Rooms (24% buyer’s premium) by the family of Phyllis Rice, housekeeper to the author at Greenway House.

Our regular listing of books and works on paper sales

An extremely rare survival from the nine-day reign of Lady Jane Grey, one of the more dramatic episodes in English history, came to market on February 25.