Collectables

A handful of copies of Robert Morden’s 'Geography Rectified, or a Description of the World' have made a little more at auction than a 1680 copy offered in a Stacey’s (24% buyer’s premium) sale of September 10 – but all bar one of them were second or third editions of 1688 and 1693.

The toy fair at Sandown Park in November is usually “the busiest one of the four we hold there each year”, says Barry Potter, founder in 1979 of BP Fairs, which first launched at this racecourse venue 31 years ago.

This large, rare Victorian doorstop depicting Charles Edward Stuart, or Bonnie Prince Charlie as it is inscribed, is offered by Malcolm Eglin Antiques for £395 at the next Galloway fair.

While it was probably pleasing for a buyer at Holts (25% buyer’s premium) to know a pair of Purdey shotguns had previously been owned by ‘God’, or Eric Clapton as less passionate fans of the great guitarist know him, it did not materially affect the £160,000 winning bid.

In its short nine-sale history, Kingham & Orme (22% buyer’s premium) has experienced considerable success selling fans, 55 of which were included in the October 5-6 mammoth sale attracting bids from round the world. Many were of museum quality.

Formerly in the collections of a distinguished English bibliophile, Major John Roland Abbey, a copy of Luigi Mayer’s well-known set of Views in Egypt, Palestine and the Ottoman Empire was one of the highlights of a recent Scottish sale.

A 17th century manuscript grimoire that sold for £18,000 (featured on these pages in ATG No 2363) was very much the star turn of an October 2 sale in Sussex, but certainly not the only lot to catch the eye.

Rude Rowlandson print is among the highlights of Gloucestershire auction.

Private Collections, an October 3 sale at Bonhams (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium), offered works of art from a number of sources and among lots from the estate of the late Victor, 3rd Viscount Churchill – a cousin of Winston – there were a few books.

An ensemble of fans both Oriental and Occidental is the subject of the dedicated sale organised by Coutau-Bégarie that takes place at Drouot on November 19. Examples date from the 17th century through to the early years of the 20th.

The dust jacket is far from pristine, but this 1933 first of The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas is signed and inscribed by both its subject and her lifelong partner, the writer Gertrude Stein.

Probably a puzzle to all but experts in the field, the item shown below is a transit instrument – one of three which all went well above estimates at a cameras and scientific instruments sale held by Special Auctions Services (17.5% buyer’s premium).

They may not have been the most photogenic lots in the catalogue of a recent London sale, but a couple of lots were highly attractive for their significance in the maths and measurements field.

This small-scale, 17th-18th century, Italian vanitas of a skull carved from Cararra marble measures 7½ x 9½in (19 x 24cm).

Was this the gun that John James Audubon (1785-1851) used to create the world’s most expensive natural history book?

Eleven years after John Kennedy Toole committed suicide, fellow writer Walker Percy was the man who ensured that his only book, A Confederacy of Dunces, finally got into print.