Collectables

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

A couple of surprise results emerged in a sale held in Armadale, Victoria, by Australian Book Auctions (19.8% buyer’s premium).

When teenagers Mark and Simon Fletcher came across a Victorian ginger beer bottle sticking out of the ground in the garden of their new home at Old Clee, near Grimsby, 40 years ago little did they know that a collecting bug was about to bite.

Bought in 1952 by a semi-pro Skegness musician who played with East Coast seaside entertainers, this steel string guitar got a big show of hands at Louth auction house John Taylors (18% buyer’s premium).

The Milestone (20% buyer’s premium) auction held in Cleveland, Ohio, featured just over 700 lots of toys – the majority from one collection.

I understand that the Battersea antiques fair had to be ticketed this time to recoup monies lost to previous cancellations.

An “extremely rare” gold Thrymsa, or shilling, dating from 640-660 and minted in Northumbria or York, was the highlight of a pensioner’s collection of Anglo-Saxon coins sold at Canterbury Auction Galleries (27% buyer’s premium inc VAT) on October 3.

I wonder if it could be explained to me why, in the currently fashionable world of ‘modern first editions’, there is a trend to link the words ‘first edition’ and ‘impression’ in the same sentence.

Letter from cryptology expert describes his analysis of a Monte Carlo betting system

Antarctic maps take highest prices in collection relating to key Terra Nova crew member

Eye-catching and ear-pleasing, this early example of a monkey chamber orchestra musical automaton picture was one of the star performers at Tennants’ (20% buyer premium) Scientific and Musical Instruments sale.

A group of early 19th century microscope slides mounted with specimens of fossilised wood sold for £11,500 (estimate £1000-1500) to a Canadian private collector at Special Auction Services (25% buyer’s premium) in Newbury.

Emile Berliner (1851-1921), a German clerk in a Washington DC haberdashery, is credited with inventing both the first commercially successful disc record and the first machine to play it.

Though the matching bindings were much later ones commissioned by London dealer Sotherans, a set of Charles Dickens’ five famous Christmas Books offered on August 28 by Potter & Potter (20% buyer’s premium) of Chicago were all firsts of 1843-48, and in some instances first issue or first state copies.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

Illustrated from drawings made by William Gibb, printed under his supervision and signed by the author, George Petree, one of 16 special copies of Dundee, its Quaint and Historic Old Buildings that were printed on Japanese paper in 1895 made a far higher than expected result at auction.

Stand-out cartographic lots sold in Gloucestershire include a string of early rarities

Underground or overground, London travel memorabilia amounted to a £95,000 hammer total at Catherine Southon (24% buyer’s premium).