Collectables

Bid to £19,700 in a recent sale was one of 100 signed, large paper firsts of Oscar Wilde’s 'The Importance of Being Earnest' published by Leonard Smithers in 1899.

British and Irish book auctions: April 16-27, 2019

First published in 1936, The Negro Travellers’ Green Book was a once indispensable guide for African-Americans in the age of segregation.

Given that the sale ran to a huge 1139 lots, the April 2-4 dispersal in Harrogate of the first part of the library of Robert James Hayhurst may be considered to have done well in achieving a selling rate of 85% at that gathering of Elzevir and other early printed works.

Meeting all the criteria for Tunbridge ware collectors, this workbox on stand below was one of the top buys at Greenslade Taylor Hunt’s (19.5% buyer’s premium) sale at Taunton on April 4.

A bound volume of early works on a famous automaton chess player, featured in ATG No 2387, was not the only lot in a recent Cumbrian sale to produce a handsome return.

A late 19th century gold bone-handled Arab dagger was hammered down at £4100 at the inaugural sale of Knightsbridge auction house Kings Russell (22% buyer’s premium).

A very rare panorama of 17th century London depicting the city skyline in the wake of the Great Fire of 1666 has sold at auction for £90,000.

Running to 50 volumes in all, the official report on 'The Scientific Results of the Voyage of HMS Challenger during the years 1873-76 in Atlantic, Pacific and Antarctic seas' took some 23 years to complete.

In an age of cumbersome large photographical apparatus, the race was on in the mid-19th century to produce practical small, easily portable cameras.

Devoted wholly to modern firsts, a recent online sale presented the first selection of a single-owner collection – the second portion of which will be sold later in the year.

An incomplete set of that remarkable ornithological work, William Lewin’s 'Birds of Great Britain', was the most expensive lot in a recent Yorkshire sale.

For the first time in more than 100 years the Lombard Haggadah, a medieval Jewish text with unique illustrations, is on public display at the New York gallery of Les Enluminures.

Special Auction Services regularly holds sales of photographic equipment cameras and photographs in its Newbury rooms.

Photographica 2019 is a destination for collectors of classic cameras. The fair hosts up to 135 tables for buying, selling and swapping classic and antique cameras from across the country.

With a documented provenance and inscribed by the maker Sébastien Garnier, Paris, 1747, a two-manual harpsichord was the top performer at the latest musical instruments sale held by Corsham, Bath, specialist Gardiner Houlgate (20% buyer’s premium).

The early weeks of March proved a particularly busy time for one saleroom in the US. As well as sales featuring the medical and scientific collections of W Bruce Fye, reported in ATG No 2386, Bonhams New York (27.5/25/20/13.9%) also sold the seventh instalment of Eric Caren’s How History Unfolds on Paper collection online, and in itsMadison Avenue rooms offered Extraordinary Books & Manuscripts.

Two first-edition versions of George Orwell’s 'The Road to Wigan Pier', the first part of which is an investigation into the working-class living conditions in Lancashire, Yorkshire and the industrial north, were published in 1937.

Zooming to a rather higher than predicted result in a collectables auction held earlier this month by Southgate Auction Rooms (20% buyer’s premium) was this camera and slides.