Collectables

MADAM – I hope your readers can help me track down a few items. I am trying to find some old Wedgwood Flaxman chess pieces from about 1825-70. I have been trying to complete this set for more than 40 years.

It is not unusual to see Victoria Crosses making huge sums at auction, but last week the man who made these medals of gallantry was the one in the spotlight.

Robert Morrison, a protestant missionary, pioneer sinologist and author of several works on the Chinese language as well as a translator, has been called the ‘Father of Anglo-Chinese Literature’.

'Firsts, London’s Rare Book Fair' has announced a second digital staging to take place this month.

This Gauge II steam-powered locomotive below was made by Schoenner, the Nüremberg toymaker operating founded by Jean Schoenner in 1875.

Mathematical work makes £300,000 in auction where composers also feature heavily

This sailor’s walking cane below displays many elements of the scrimshander’s art: a whalebone shaft carved with spiral fluting, collars inlaid with shell from the hawksbill turtle and a handle carved as a dove from the tooth of a sperm whale.

ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from September 1-16, 2020.

Rare book specialist Hamish Riley-Smith, who died on August 10, did not originally intend to become a dealer.

Bernard Shapero of Shapero Rare Books is among the newcomers to the Petworth Park Antiques & Fine Art Fair (September 11-13) this year.

Thousands of items are available to buy from dealers online. Here we pick out one that caught our eye this week.

Extensively interleaved with scholarly notes and running to over 700pp, a Japanese and English Dictionary compiled by JC Hepburn was a notable rarity in a Cornish summer sale.

According to his family, this French imperial naval eagle was purchased by the dealer Jack Webb (1923-2019) from a ‘totter’ in the early 1970s over the counter at his shop in Camden Passage.

A vast collection of Victorian kitchen antiques formed by a dealer from Kent has found a new home in North Yorkshire.

Organiser of events across the country has fingers crossed for fairs scheduled later in 2020.

MADAM – I note with interest that the Firsts London rare book fair is on the move again (News, ATG No 2454).

PBFA (Provincial Booksellers Fairs Association) has held four monthly online book fairs, with the fifth going live to the public at noon on Saturday, August 29. Up to 15 books/items can be put up for sale by each bookseller member.