Collectables

The script for the very first Doctor Who episode owned by the first actor to play the role is coming up at auction in the West Midlands.

Sold for $28,000 (£20,820) by Christie’s New York (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) on December 5 was this original drawing by Ralph Steadman for the 1971 first appearance of Hunter Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

An album of Indian photographs sold for £32,000 in Edinburgh provided ATG’s Pick of the Week in the previous issue (No 2331), but there was much more on offer in that 550-lot Scottish sale.

Running to some 300pp and described by the auctioneers as “a most enchanting album, redolent of Jane Austen and her world”, a scrapbook compilation of paper cut-outs, views and figural studies, sold for £1550 in a general sale held in Sussex.

A Parisian Book of Hours dating to c.1440-50 was among illuminated or decorated manuscripts sold during in the closing weeks of 2017.

Commonly known as a What The Butler Saw machine, a late 19th-early 20th century Mutoscope was the most alluring of a consignment of a collection of amusement arcade machines offered at Canterbury Auction Galleries (20% buyer’s premium).

German-made painted wood Noah’s arks, appealing to folk art and toy collectors alike, don’t get much better than the mid- 19th century example sold at Bonhams Knightsbridge.

Sold at £6000 in a recent Scottish sale was an early golfing item. The 1839 edition of Rules of the Game of Golf adopted by the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers shown below was still in the original wrappers and bore an 1852 ownership inscription of one Henry Wells.

A fascinating archive of designs for Brunel’s Thames Tunnel sold at Bonhams was bought by a museum dedicated to the pioneering structure to form the centrepiece of a £4.5m expansion, it has been revealed.

Skilfully designed to catch salmon, fishing flies and lures hooked enthusiasts at Shropshire sporting specialist Mullock’s (20% buyer’s premium) fishing sale which included the work of two great names in the angling lexicon.

Printed in Mexico in 1787, but promoted as the first book in English printed west of the Mississippi, a slim work of just 14 leaves in contemporary paper wrappers called A Short Abridgment to Christian Doctrine was one of the rarer items offered in a recent California sale.

Under the overall command of James Clark Ross, one of the earlier major expeditions to the Antarctic regions focused principally on magnetic and geographical investigations – but others aboard had different priorities.

The many voyages made in search of the lost Franklin expedition feature strongly in another spotlight on polar exploration covering sales in London and New York. The splendid Martin Greene library again provides notable highlights.