Collectables

Some of the earliest dolls’ houses are also referred to as baby houses, although they were more like detailed miniature houses and it is said that the aim was not play but to reflect riches.

Our regular listing of books and works and paper sales

A round up selling exhibitions and dealer news from the UK and Europe

The books sale at Koller (25% buyer’s premium) in Zurich on September 17 was topped at SwFr250,000 (£237,250) by a first edition of the book Einstein described as “perhaps the greatest intellectual stride that it has ever been granted to any man to make”.

A musket ball-riddled handkerchief of a Royal Navy captain cut down at the Battle of Trafalgar stood out at a London sale, but it was a letter to his eight-year-old daughter also retrieved from his pocket that added a particularly poignant touch.

A round-up of art and antiques news from the previous seven days, including a Ferdinand III (1608-57) 100 ducat gold making a record sum

Influential scientific papers were originally bought by library after a bequest from a local surgeon

An extensive selection of Beatles memorabilia sold by Propstore (26% buyer’s premium) on October 23 included a 1963 poster promoting their first tour outside the UK.

Comic Book Auctions' current timed online sale ending on November 23 includes the first Star Wars poster from 1977.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish books and works on paper sales

The artist Margaret Bartels (1887-1932), who trained at the Camberwell School of Art, came from a family of suffrage campaigners living in south London.

Poster specialist Antikbar of Chelsea will stage an auction on November 15 which includes this original 1920s travel poster issued by the London and North Eastern Railway promoting the Edinburgh to Kings Cross route and an ‘Illustrated booklet free from LNER Offices and Agencies’.

Designs by lesser-known poster artists can nonetheless be highly sought after by collectors, as recent auction results demonstrate.

Bidders given a first slice of Britain’s ‘biggest collection of breadboards’ from museum in family home

Story of major British cartography collection provides a good case study in how export licences operate

A George II silver pocket microscope made by John Clark of Edinburgh c.1750 sold for £34,000 as part of the  sale of items from the library of Enlightenment era Scottish mathematician James Stirling (1692-1770).