Collectables

It is a quarter of a century since ATG’s first overview of London’s numismatic auction market. Here we review the heads and the tails of 2018.

Two owners of antiques and vintage businesses who buy extensively from fairs and markets in the UK are showcased here.

ATG’s selection of 11 coins and medals lots that were among the highlights sold at UK auctions in 2018.

In the latest of our occasional series of collector interviews, we talk to Musa Igrek, who won the ABA Book Collecting Prize 2018 for his assemblage of secretly funded government-sponsored works during the Cold War.

A selection of toys and games at the Bath Decorative Antiques Fair proves that antique playthings have their place as both decorative items and collectors’ pieces.

It’s not every day you see an auctioneer holding a 5ft 6in (1.67m) long sperm whale penis. Then again, it’s not every day that you see the sort of lots that are offered in Sworders’ Out of the Ordinary auction.

As featured on the cover of ATG No 2377, more treasures associated with the ‘Tiger of Mysore’, Tipu Sultan, are scheduled for auction in March at the Antony Cribb sale.

A group of illuminated manuscripts valued at £100,000 that were stolen from a London auction house in 2016 have been recovered in Italy.

The Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association (ABA) has joined forces with Shakespeare’s Globe as its charity partner for the next edition of its June flagship fair.

A sledge from the first expedition to the Antarctic led by Ernest Shackleton sold for £115,000 in Bonhams’ Travel and Exploration sale on February 6.

ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from February 12-21, 2019.

Map dealer Jim Dickinson next stands at Art Antiques Cheshire (February 22-24)

Close to 300 lots in a recent London sale that focused mainly on private press and other illustrated books came from the library of the late Bruce Beatty, a banker whose artistic and bibliographic collecting preferences included fin de siècle literature.

Copies of Giacomo Franco’s Habiti d’huomeni et donne venetiane…, a collection of detailed views and scenes of Venetian life and costume published c.1610, vary in the numbers of plates they present.