Collectables

Bid to a rather higher than suggested £1300 in a Lawrences (22% buyer’s premium) sale of December 8 in Crewkerne were two early 19th century works on water meadows.

On the basis that it’s never too late for chocolate, or indeed beer, a belated report from BBR’s (15% buyer’s premium) sale of advertising memorabilia at Elsecar.

Dr Who fans can start collecting early this year with a series of lots from the cult science-fiction show going under the hammer in January.

A collection of remarkable Nelson memorabilia from the Battle of Trafalgar on offer at Sotheby’s includes a large fragment of the Union Jack believed to have flown from HMS Victory at Trafalgar.

Presentation copies of The Bostonians and a volume containing the first bookform appearance of The Turn of the Screw were among the highlights of a large Henry James collection offered in almost 50 lots as part of a Sotheby’s (25/20/12.9% buyer’s premium) sale.

Possibly the first autograph manuscript of a complete work by Bela Bartok ever seen at auction, a working manuscript for the complete score of the original version of his Second Rhapsody for Violin and Piano (BB96) was bid to £250,000 in a music sale held by Sotheby’s (25/20/12.9% buyer’s premium).

A fine Pushkin collection, running to a dozen lots in all, was a major attraction in the Russian section of at a Christie’s (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) sale.

A gentleman retires to his designated smoker’s chair, picks up his meerschaum pipe and Dunhill lighter and puffs away contentedly by his hearth… a vanished scenario in the UK today but recreated in the antiques world in these three items from December auctions.

It was around this time of year when wealthy skiers with chalets to decorate would dial in from the slopes of the world’s most prestigious resorts to take part in Christie’s South Kensington’s annual Ski Sale.

Whatever chaos faces hundreds of thousands of commuters on the railways as we enter the New Year, the better-ordered world of model trains steams on to continued success.

Must-have Christmas presents in the Sixties and Seventies, Sasha dolls have remarkable appeal today.

This is Liza Minelli as you might never have seen her – in this Polish poster by Wiktor Górka for the film Kabaret, which was created in 1973 for the first year of the film’s release in Poland.

Second World War technology starred at Tennants’ (20% buyer’s premium) militaria sale at Leyburn.

Illustrated here are two of the 20 hand-coloured litho plates, many showing the Crystal Palace in the background and each with a rhyming couplet below, that make up Blondin’s Marvellous Feats.

Some of the works on offer at BRAFA are simply too quirky to fit into any time-honoured collecting category, but they are often responsible for creating an eyecatching draw to a particular stand.