Collectables

The first tranche of a private collection of predominantly Far Eastern maps and charts sold for more than £500,000 at Reeman Dansie and included a house record.

Just a little less famous than Fry’s 'Five Boys' image is the illustration by Tom Browne of a multi-class group outside a sweetshop with the line from 'Troilus and Cressida: One touch of Nature makes the whole World kin'.

Variety was certainly in evidence in a West Sussex sale, where the teenage journal of a young stained-glass maker, two broadside ballads and an illustrated dummy for 'Down with Skool!' all brought much higher than predicted bids.

It is the practice of one US saleroom to publish what are called ‘starting bids’ rather than an estimate range in its catalogues.

Bearing a modest estimate of £50-75 but sold instead at £800 by Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood (23% buyer’s premium) on September 4 was a copy of 'Women’s Suffrage: a Short History of a Great Movement' (1912) by that renowned campaigner for women’s political rights, Millicent Garrett Fawcett.

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions.

Signed by its author to the title-page, a 1939 first of TS Eliot’s 'Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats' sold for £4300 in a Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) auction.

Until electricity became commonplace in homes, the power source of choice for the gramophone was a spring motor that required frequent winding. One unusual solution to silent interludes at the dinner dance was to power the device by hot air.

Many talented footballers had their careers interrupted or even curtailed by the world wars. Although Allenby Chilton is not exactly a household name, not many players featured in both a Manchester United title-winning side and the D-Day Normandy landings.

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that the football league in Scotland has not always been dominated by Celtic and Rangers. The last time a team outside the Old Firm won the title was Aberdeen in 1985.

Stand-out lot in the Julien’s auction on November 14 in Beverly Hills is a Brooklyn Dodgers coaching uniform worn by Babe Ruth, America’s baseball hero. It comes from a 350-piece private collection amassed over 30 years.

Amassed by one of the longest-serving members of the MCC (Marylebone Cricket Club), a group of cricketing lots notched up a number of auction highlights last month.

The John Goodwin (15% buyer’s premium) saleroom in Malvern offered what it dubbed “probably the most notorious bat in cricket history” in its June 20 auction: the infamous aluminium bat used by Dennis Lillee in the 1979-80 Ashes.

This late 9ct gold Football League medal was awarded to Billy Bassett (1869-1937), one of the best-known footballers of the late Victorian era.

American Lance Wyman (b.1937) is regarded by many as one of the greatest graphic designers of the modern era and the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico – the first to be held in Latin America – gave him the ideal canvas to showcase his considerable talents.