Collectables

One of the largest collections of original John F. Kennedy documents remaining in private hands is being offered for sale by a London book dealer.

A Mercedes Benz, a Cadillac, a 1971 Harley Davidson Motorcycle, $100,000 in cash and half the income of California rental homes around Beverly Hills and Palm Springs.

As noted often recently in Antiques Trade Gazette, successive waves of original American D-Day flags have stormed into salerooms despite their fragile nature, with consignors tempted by the high prices they fetch at auction.

Have you heard of the famous actor Béla Ferenc Dezsö Blaskó? Probably not in that form, but you may know him better as Bela Lugosi. If you collect film posters, you will certainly know his most famous role.

The oldest surviving music hall in the world, Wilton's, has given its complete archive to the V&A, saving the history of its eclectic performing arts at the venue for posterity.

In September 1966, John Graham ‘Mitch’ Mitchell was invited to ‘come and have a play’ with a newly arrived American guitarist in London named Jimi Hendrix.

It weighs just 10gms and measures only 4in (9cm) in length, but this gold laurel leaf is heavy with historical associations.

50 years on and Hendrix still rocks – Hansons Auctioneers has sold a note, written on the back of a packet of guitar strings in 1967, for £5700.

Football trivia time: who was the last player to score five goals for England in a game – but never played for the national team at Wembley ever again?

Fancy owning one of the earliest vehicles on the road and racing it down to Brighton? Now’s your chance as more than 20 vintage cars, many restored and fit to compete in the 120-year old veteran run, are to be sold in early November.

'No, you can't chop your Poppa up in Massachusetts', the refrain from a once hugely popular song, and the verse from a skipping-rope rhyme with which this article ends, both derive from the controversy that continues to this day regarding one of America's most famous murder trials – and to a legal document sold on October 19 by Heritage Auctions of Dallas.