Collectables

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).

Phillip Segal Toys are very much rarities. He began production in Hampshire in 1938 but was halted when wartime restrictions banned the use of lead.

A sale conducted by US firm Connecticut River Book Auction (15% buyer’s premium) on September 5 included a very rare copy of Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s Le Petit Prince.

Original manuscript copies of the famous medieval Paston Letters come to the rostrum in Norfolk

Jenny and Ray Norman, best known as East Anglian longcase clock dealers since 1974, have contacted ATG to highlight an item they say is just in time for the festive season (but it might not fit that well in a Christmas stocking).

The Collector sale at Bishop & Miller in Glandford, near Holt, on October 29 included this late Victorian taxidermy case of two of New Zealand’s rarest birds.

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