Collectables

The exact function of carved and painted wood butcher’s shop dioramas is uncertain.

The ice pick carried by geologist Frank Debenham (1883-1965) during the doomed Terra Nova British Antarctic Expedition of 1910-13 sold for £22,000 (plus buyer’s premium) at Cheffins earlier this month. The estimate was just £200-400.

Ornithological books and artworks have played their part in the success of two recent sales and a selection of just a few of those lots begins with books from the Ladwell library.

ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from March 19-30, 2019.

Though it sold just a touch under the lower estimate, a copy of the 1938 launch issue of Beano was the top lot in a Comic Book Auctions (19% buyer’s premium) timed auction of March 3 held on thesaleroom.com.

A Californian sale of March 7 certainly offered great variety in age, content and price range. Promoted as A Biblio-Medley for All Tastes, it ran to well over 500 lots across its printed and supplementary, online catalogues – with at least one lot, a volume of the works of Arthur Hallam, sold for just $10.

Conducted by Christie’s Paris (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) in collaboration with Bertrand Meaudre of Paris dealer Librairie Landarchet, a February 20 sale featured the dispersal of the library of Marc Litzler for a premium-inclusive total of €4.4m (£3.82m).

The lot that gained all the publicity in a recent Shropshire sale, even national newspaper coverage, was a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

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

ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from March 12-23, 2019.