Collectables

Alice, Tennyson and Port of London plans all played their part in the success of a September 5 sale held by Bellmans (22% buyer’s premium), but the prize lot was something of much greater antiquity.

Sold for £560 by Thomson Roddick (17.5% buyer’s premium) on September 6 was a watercolour by Ella Du Cane (1874-1943).

Best of 193 lots of film posters which made up a specialist sale at Burstow Hewett (15% buyer’s premium) at Battle was this variation for the classic movie The Maltese Falcon.

In recent years Dominic Winter (19.5% buyer’s premium) has enjoyed considerable success with cookery manuscripts and the most recent auction further enhanced the saleroom’s recipe for culinary success.

Enhancing a growing reputation at Edinburgh auction house Thomson Roddick (17.5% buyer’s premium) for optical instruments, a recent sale included 18 lots of binoculars and the like.

Bid to £45,000 at Sotheby’s (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) was an extensively revised and corrected autograph draft of what was to become Charles Dickens’ tale of ‘Mrs Gamp with the Strolling Players’.

Two aspects of soldiering – a touch of glamour and life at the deadly sharp end – were illustrated in two lots at a Tennants (18.5% buyer’s premium) antiques and militaria sale at Leyburn.

Located on the Vistula river in northern Poland, the old city of Torun somehow escaped undamaged from the ravages of the Second World War and is now recognised as one of the country’s national treasures.

A Regency period guide to ballroom dancing, sold for a much higher than expected £800, was a rare and welcome entry in the book section of a September 6 sale held by Hartleys (18% buyer’s premium) of Ilkley.

It’s only rock ‘n’ roll, but nevertheless rare concert posters are selling for large sums at auction.