Collectables

Future president’s 'How to Get Rich' is a curious feature of a bumper summer sales week

ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from September 29-October 10, 2020.

As heroic a defence against the odds as Rorke’s Drift, and certainly more important, the twin battles of Imphal and Kohima are much less well known.

Bid to £1.35m at Christie’s (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) this summer, as part of a ‘Classic Week’ evening sale of paintings, drawings, manuscripts, sculpture and decorative arts of all ages, was a lavishly illustrated Book of Hours attributed to the Master of the Monypenny Breviary and associates.

A celebrated Una and the Lion proof set minted in the first year of Queen Victoria’s reign returns to auction next month.

Choice specimens of the rarest English coins are reaching new financial territory.

Economic stimulus packages are not a new phenomenon. Georg Siegmund Stobwasser (1717-76) was among the many craftsmen attracted to the Brunswick by the special privileges granted them in the city by Duke Karl I (1713-80) in the wake of the Seven Years’ War.

An English translation of a Dutch 16th century sea atlas was among the standout sales at the recent online edition of Firsts: London’s Rare Book Fair.

A Beatles-themed sale held by Cato Crane (28% buyer’s premium) in Liverpool last month included architectural souvenirs from St Peter’s Church in Woolton.

Inscribed copies of the works of Dodie Smith were among the attractions of a summer sale held by Stride & Son (18% buyer’s premium) of Chichester.

Coinex, the traditional autumn focus for the numismatic world, is cancelled this year.

A Military Cross group awarded to a soldier who carried a fallen comrade through fierce gunfire in Iraq sold at £36,000 (plus 20% buyer ’s premium) in Macclesfield on September 11.

ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from September 22-October 9, 2020.

Plenty of Dickensian lots were on offer in a sale held by US saleroom PBA Galleries (20/15% buyer’s premium).

Stand-out lot in a travel, map and natural history sale held by Sotheby’s (25/20/13.9% buyer’s premium) was a grand and elaborately cased set of the monumental 'Description de l’Egypte' of 1809-22.

Aston’s Auctioneers & Valuers in Dudley is to close and its final sale – a sci-fi toy collection – will be held next month.

A cache of material related to the influential Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-61) and her family sold for close to £50,000 at Lawrences of Crewkerne.