Collectables

Renowned as he is for promoting – indeed, creating – markets in art, advertising mogul Charles Saatchi appears to have over-estimated the taxidermy market when bidding at the sale of the Will Fisher Collection at Christie’s South Kensington in February 2012.

Two letters sent by passengers who lost their lives when the Titanic sank in 1912 came to auction in the latter part of 2017: one of them posted before she sailed, the other recovered, along with the owner’s pocket book, when his body was pulled from the freezing Atlantic waters.

Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and the Holy Places…, an elephant folio work of 1865 that sold for a treble-estimate £45,000 at Sotheby’s (25/20/12.9% buyer’s premium) on November 14, was a rare and complete proof copy of a monumental book of Palestinian views recognised as one of the scarcer colour-plate books on the Middle East.

A selective one-day 'Samurai Armor Fair' launches next month in Amsterdam.

A remarkable group of 14 works by HG Wells – every one of them sporting a dust jacket – sold at strong and very often record sums in the book section of a December 15 sale held by Cuttlestones (17.5% buyer’s premium).

The season, the spirit in question and the location of the sale put this bottle of Lagavulin whisky, below, into the spotlight.

Peter Finer and his two sons Roland and Redmond specialise in antique arms and armour from the Bronze Age to the 19th century and they have been crossing the Atlantic to exhibit at the Winter Antiques Show for over 30 years. Here, they explain why.

A tin of Horlick’s was one of the odder and cheaper lots in the $3m sale of material from the Martin Greene library on ‘Russian America and Polar Exploration’ held by Christie’s New York (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) on December 7.

Former Christie’s vintage poster specialists Nicolette Tomkinson and Sophie Churcher have teamed up with Lyon & Turnbull to launch dedicated auctions this year.

Complete with slightly frayed and browned but rarely seen jacket, a 1933 copy of George Orwell’s 'Down and Out in Paris and London' was bid to £46,000 by James Hall of Lucius Books in York at a Dominic Winter sale.

Where scientific instruments are concerned, recent highlights such as Albert Einstein’s telescope or a working example of the Apple 1 computer could have been selected. However, we begin instead with the improved, four-rotor Enigma cipher machine.

While the end of last year was chock-full of auctions, this winter has been even busier.