Collectables

Soldiers are often associated with hard drinking – but rarely temperance.

John Faber’s mezzotint version of a portrait by John Vanderbank of Nicholas Saunderson (1682-1739), a celebrated blind scientist and mathematician, was bid to 10 times the high estimate in a Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) general clear-out sale.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions

Collector’s daughter describes what it was like to grow up amid huge musical machines

The postponed January auction at Gloucestershire saleroom Chorley’s will take place on March 23-24.

A Second World War beret sold at a Kent auction was not only one of the famous maroon British paratrooper examples but had star billing of its own.

Items assembled by well-known antiques dealer Ted Few will go under the hammer at London auction house Roseberys.

Princess Margaret’s lover Flight Lieutenant Peter Townsend (1914-95) has been introduced to a new generation of TV viewers due to Netflix TV series The Crown – but militaria lots sold at auction also underline his renown as an RAF ace.

Collection offered in London auction included Agatha Christie and other crime classics

The highlight of a £75,000, 30-lot private collection of Robert Thompson oak carvings sold by Tennants was an anthropomorphic figure of The Mouseman of Kilburn.

This Georgian grant of arms document on vellum was presented to the celebrated Scottish physician Gilbert Blane (1749-1834) after his creation as a baronet by The Prince Regent in 1812.

Georgian silver bow corkscrews by Dublin makers are rare beasts and appeal to both silver collectors and helixophiles.

This George III silver table snuff box by Phipps and Robinson, London 1814, is engraved to the cover with a plan of the battle of Talavera in the Peninsular War.

Offered at Bonhams New York (27.5/25/20/13.9% buyer’s premium) was a first selection from the medical library of James Tate Goodrich (1946-2020).

In Praise of America was a very mixed sale of furniture, silver, folk art, prints, broadsides and more held in New York.

This late Victorian carved lime and soft wood panel is by James Peake (c.1839-1918), a carver and gilder.

Sporting subjects were very much in evidence and definitely among the best-sellers in an illustration art sale held in New York.