Collectables

Published in 1862, one exceptional lot in a Californian sale that focused on food and drink was billed as “The Canonical Text in Bartending”.

Bid to £1500 in a Norfolk sale was a 1930 first of The Savoy Cocktail Book.

A snuff box believed to have been gifted by Lord Nelson to his personal secretary during a dinner party attended by Emma Hamilton has been sold by Paul Fraser Collectables for £45,000.

Hotlotz in Singapore holds a single-owner online auction on August 22 featuring the ‘property of a gentleman’.

Demand for anything to do with Concorde is always high but a huge ‘museum quality’ model at Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) had an extra touch.

A silver sale at Woolley & Wallis (25/12% buyer’s premium) this summer included a selection of 24 snuff boxes from the Lion collection – as published in 'British Silver Boxes 1640-1840, The Lion Collection' (2015).

One of the finest European railway toy collections built in the US generated a suitably enthusiastic response when it came to auction.

What was billed as ‘the finest Matchbox collection to be auctioned in recent years’ was offered at Vectis (20% buyer’s premium) in the spring.

Such is the recent appeal of dolls’ house accessories that you do not even need the ‘house’ to put them in, it seems.

A live-steam Gauge 2 Midland Railway locomotive and tender was the top lot of Tennants’ (20% buyer’s premium) Toys, Models, Collectables and Sporting Sale.

This rare French Emile Jumeau bisque-headed character doll from c.1892, with a distinctive light brown complexion, turned heads in a US saleroom.

On August 19 Pook & Pook will sell the collection of Barbara A and Fred Johnson of Rockford, Illinois, owners of Barbara A Johnson Antiques.

Thomaston Place is holding one of its extensive multi-discipline summer sale over three days from August 27-29 featuring a wide mix of American, European and Asian paintings, furnishings and objects.

By the 1980s toy action figures were shrinking in size from GI Joe and Action Man proportions to the likes of Action Force and Star Wars.

A richly illuminated leaf from a late 15th century manuscript account of the life of St Catherine sold at a high-estimate £30,000 at Bloomsbury Auctions (25/20/12% buyer’s premium).

A tinplate model of the Alfa Romeo P2 sped past a £500-1000 estimate to take £4600 at Duke’s (25% buyer’s premium) auction in Dorchester.

Armenian manuscript demolishes estimate to take six figures in London saleroom

Among the medal groups that impressed at Dix Noonan Webb's July 21 auction was one awarded to a famous recipient: RAF Group Captain Peter Townsend.

On a single day in 1919 the Imperial German Navy achieved the impressive feat of sinking 52 vessels. Unfortunately, they were its own ships.