Collectables

A large and handsome souvenir publication for the French liner SS Normandie was offered in a Mullock’s (20% buyer’s premium) sale of October 16.

In this year also marking the centenary of the RAF, Bosleys’ (20% buyer’s premium) fourth annual sale of aviation collectables on September 13, held in conjunction with (and at) sister auction house Marlows in Stafford, included a large number of related items.

If anything sums up the sense of slaughter that came from the British experience of the First World War and how that affected so many families, it is a lot coming up in Bonhams’ November 21 Medals, Bonds, Banknotes and Coins auction.

Two copies of Time Out of Joint, an early dystopian work by the well-known sci-fi writer Philip K Dick, were offered in a PBA Galleries (20/15% buyer’s premium) sale of October 18.

The centenary of the Armistice has been marked by the appearance of some poignant lots at auction revealing the human cost.

As soon as the devastating power of machine guns in the First World War became clear, the British Army abandoned its earlier policy of attaching a section of just two guns to each infantry battalion or cavalry regiment.

Personal items from the renowned physicist Stephen Hawking impress among an illustrious array of names.

C&T Auctioneers’ (20% buyer’s premium) November 6 sale titled After the Great War Centenary also marked the final slice of a three-part offering of what specialist Matthew Tredwen called “one of the finest collections of First World War German militaria to have been sold at auction in the UK”.

Such was the scale of the Great War that the Cameronians regiment alone raised 27 battalions from 1914-18.

British Empire soldiers included more than a million Indian Army troops serving overseas.

The ‘heroic age’ of Polar Exploration coincided with the First World War. Shackleton’s perilous 1914-17 expedition was conducted against the backdrop of war in the northern hemisphere, while other earlier Polar explorers found themselves caught up in the conflict.

Dated October 29, 1862, a letter that may very well have been Abraham Lincoln’s last to his over-cautious army chief, General George McClellan, provided a highlight of a recent Dallas sale of historical manuscripts.

In April this year Spink held an exhibition to mark the centenary of the founding of the RAF, ahead of a dedicated section in its two-day Orders, Decorations and Medals sale the same month.

It was a British engineer, Robert Whitehead (1823-1905) – working in Austria at the instigation of the Austrian Navy – who developed the first self-propelled torpedo in the 1850s.

A classic souvenir for Grand Tourists across the years, this pair of 19th century models of the temples of Vespasian and Castor and Pollux below was one of the stand-out lots at the Wallis & Wallis (20% buyer’s premium) four-day sale at Lewes.

The vast human toll of the First World War did not end with the Armistice. On New Year’s Eve 2018 Oberleutnant Friedrich Ritter Von Röth committed suicide at the age of 25, as a result of being shattered at Germany’s defeat.

A Distinguished Flying Cross medal group offered at Stroud Auctions (18% buyer’s premium) on November 7-8 underlines the sometimes rudimentary nature of the embyonic early war in the air.

The camel looks terribly pleased with its hat and collar in this plate from a copy of Emily Eden’s 'Portraits of the Princes and People of India' sold on October 23 as part of an Indian & Islamic Art sale.

This classic First World war recruitment poster with the Old Lion of Britain calling on the Young Lions to answer the call to fight is estimated at £200-400 in Onslows’ poster auction on December 14.

A popular form of gift or memento to loved ones as troops left for the front was a ‘sweetheart brooch’.