Collectables

For the second time in a decade, on August 10, Heritage in Dallas will offer for sale the prototype of the original GI Joe figure.

The series of electroplated teapots designed by Christopher Dresser and made by James Dixon & Sons in 1879 rank among the great moments of the Aesthetic movement – and 19th century art as a whole.

In 1987 the BBC interviewed Daimler-Benz’s former chief engineer, Rudi Uhlenhaut, and asked the 81-year-old about the firm’s post-War return to serious motor racing in the 1954-55 period.

We can be too quick to write the obituary of the passionate old-school collector. Thankfully, they are still with us.

An extraordinary cache of 2794 Victorian farthings, all dated 1890, of the same type, and generally all in glorious mint state, have been consigned as lot 680 to Woolley & Wallis’s upcoming Silver and Collectors’ sale in Salisbury.

Eton College is now the new home of the world’s most expensive football programme.

David Gonzalez, a builder and decorator in Hoffman, Minnesota, bought a small house on his own account for $10,100 and set to work on fixing it up for re-sale. Then he took down one of the walls and revealed a hidden treasure.

Even in the collecting field of the ‘heroic age’ of Polar exploration where items reflecting incredible stories of human endurance seem to come thick and fast, there are still some that really take the breath away.

Sotheby’s have issued a robust defence of the British Postal Museum & Archive in the wake of strong criticism of the decision to sell off a tranche of its stamp collection valued at up to £5m.

What must be one of the most iconic racing cars ever to come up for sale will be offered by Bonhams at the Goodwood Festival of Speed on July 12.

Is this Elkington kettle the earliest provable Christopher Dresser design for electroplated silver?

Warwickshire saleroom Bigwood of Teddington, Stratford-on-Avon sold this mid 19th century whalebone cane for an extraordinary £27,000 at their latest sale.

A Lonsdale Belt awarded to Welsh heavyweight boxing champion Jack Petersen has been stolen from his son’s home.

If you want to complete a collection of Olympic participation medals, then one in particular – that made for the 1904 Games in St Louis – is going to cost you a lot of money.

The inaugural sale held by new London-based musical instrument auctioneers Ingles & Hayday generated a £2.26m total from 150 lots.

A first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone containing personal annotations and illustrations by author J.K. Rowling’s fetched £150,000 at a charity auction held at Sotheby’s in London last night.

Almost exactly a year after Graham Budd set a record for any football programme at auction he has done it again.

Billed as “the most important early printed book to be offered this century”, a deluxe vellum copy of the ‘Opera’ of Virgil is being offered at Christie’s on June 12.

It has a face value of ten shillings but a price tag of Aus$3.5m (£2.3m) at Coinworks, the specialist dealers and auctioneers of Melbourne.

The Mishneh Torah was withdrawn from a recent Sotheby’s sale at the eleventh hour after vendors Michael and Judy Steinhard struck a private treaty sale with The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.