Collectables

London-made flintlocks with a solid provenance to Alexander Hamilton took to the stage at US sale

The outstanding lot in the arms and armour sale held in London on June 30 by Thomas Del Mar (25% buyer’s premium) was the £96,000 16th century Augsburg close helmet illustrated on the front page of last week’s ATG (No 2501).

Artworks by another legendary musician, Bob Dylan (b.1941), drew decent competition once again at Tennants (20% buyer’s premium) this summer.

Among the earlier printed books, Bibles played their part in a wide-ranging auction held by Forum Auctions (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium), and none so financially well as a fine, clean example of Robert Estienne’s Greek text Bible of 1550.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions

Among the properties included in the June Thomas Del Mar sale was the McEwen collection of bows and associated items which proved unexpectedly popular raising £30,000, around four times its top estimate.

More details have been released about the new online book fair bringing North American and European book dealers together this month.

Record for a painting by the music legend David Bowie leads a look at rockstar attempts at visual art

Two lots from the March 30 live online auction held by Antony Cribb (22% buyer’s premium) of Newbury are shown here.

An early painting by Roger ‘Syd’ Barrett (1946-2006) of Pink Floyd led a 200-lot picture section at a recent Cheffins (22.5% buyer’s premium) sale.

Very soon after the gun was invented men were trying to find ways of speeding up the process of reloading powder and shot to obtain a superior rate of fire.

The prize lot sold at a recent Hermann Historica (25% buyer’s premium) sale in Munich was this 19th century Ottoman kilij of characteristic form with a curved blade swelling towards the tip.

Three pistol lots came to the fore at a recent sale at Bonhams (27.5/25/20/14.5% buyer’s premium) in London.

Once the humble playthings of boys the world over, airguns now attract a keen collector following.

The German Maxim machine gun was used to devastating effect on Allied troops during the First World War.

A premium-inclusive total of £1.5m was achieved at Holts’ (25/20% buyer’s premium) summer auction in Norfolk, the third consecutive sale held with no one bidding in the room because of Covid restrictions.

A Renaissance helmet sold at a London auction will be reunited with its garniture (set of armour) after being bought by Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA).

The overall performance of the latest London sales of Old Master pictures and ‘important’ works of art was fairly mixed but the auction houses did at least welcome the return of some big-ticket items.

Valued at £2000-4000 in an Entertainment, Memorabilia & Movie Props sale held by Ewbank’s (25% buyer’s premium) of Send on May 27 was an uncorrected 1997 proof copy of a book that was soon to make publishing, cinematic and marketing history: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.