Collectables

A Series 1 Land Rover presented to Sir Winston Churchill on his 80th birthday was sold for £129,000 by Cheffins of Cambridge, more than double the top estimate – an auction record for a Land Rover, say the auctioneers.

A year after offering the first spectacular array of woodworking tools from the collection of David R. Russell, David Stanley Auctions of Osgathorpe included the third instalment from this prolific source at their most recent sale.

Edinburgh-based auctioneers Lyon & Turnbull will offer a pair of Chinese filigree fans at their Asian sale on December 5.

This small 6in (15cm) object made of gourd, ivory and pierced tortoiseshell would have originally housed crickets in 18th century China.

Setting an auction record for a motorcycle, this 1922 Brough Superior, known to all as ‘Old Bill’, sold for £260,000 last week.

A local 90-year-old gentleman and his wife were in the room to watch his childhood toy sell for a small fortune at W. & H. Peacock’s recent ‘Memories of Childhood’ sale in Bedford.

It is doubtless the source of a little irritation, or perhaps amusement, to members of the men-only Flyfishers Club of Piccadilly that the two largest salmon ever caught with a rod and line in British waters were both landed by women.

Noble Investments plc, owners of A.H. Baldwin, the coin dealers and auctioneers, have announced that £2.2m in commissions due from “a significant Qatari collector” remains unpaid.

Dreweatts have announced a new joint venture with online wine trading platform bidforwine.com which provides live online and timed bidding services for connoisseurs, traders and investors, backed by storage facilities at the EHD bonded warehouse in Weybridge.

The eagerly anticipated auction of Underground posters direct from the archives of London Transport Museum was a sell-out at Christie’s South Kensington earlier this month.

This large, scratch-built 5in gauge Great Western Railway locomotive is one of two being sold at Lawrences of Crewkerne on November 2, with both expected to realise £3000-4000.

This first edition, first issue of ‘The Great Gatsby’ from 1922 is one of the star lots in a sale described by Bloomsbury Auctions as “one of the most important collections of modern first editions to come onto the market in the last ten years”.

Edward S. Curtis’ monumental photographic study of ‘The North American Indian’ was one of the most expensive and ambitious undertakings in the history of book production, comprising 20 illustrated text volumes and 20 folios of larger photographic plates.

By the late 17th century, Port Royal, located at the end of the Palisadoes at the mouth of Kingston Harbour in south-eastern Jamaica, had earned the reputation of being both the richest and the wickedest city in the world.

Fine and unusual English guns made for Indian princes formed the most lucrative sub-section of Holt’s latest London sale.

This Dinky pre-War delivery van advertising Maison De Bonneterie’s flagship department store in Amsterdam will appear at Vectis in Thornaby, near Stockton-on-Tees on October 17.

A large array of hunting items is to be included at Mitchells of Cockermouth’s sporting sale on October 13.

This Russian military medal demolished an estimate of £10,000-15,000 at a recent sale held at Bonhams Knightsbridge.

Original film footage of the 1969 moon launch, including the moments before Neil Armstrong and his fellow astronauts boarded the Apollo spacecraft, has come to light in West London.

A unique ceremonial key for opening Victoria Bridge in Kuala Kangsor, Malaysia, is one of the more unusual items coming up at JP Humbert of Towcester’s September 26-27 sale.