Collectables

“An armadillo for you, from Jonathan Ross,” says the courier as he returns a box midway through my interview with Alexis Turner.

Recent years have seen a massive increase in the offerings and prices realised by banknotes.

A letter written by pioneering scientist Dr Francis Crick containing what is probably the first description he gave of the discovery of DNA has been sold for a world auction record.

Familiarly known as the Bay Psalm Book, one of the finest surviving copies of the first book printed in what is now the USA is expected to become the world’s most expensive book at Sotheby’s New York in November.

This 15-star American War Naval Jack used in the Anglo-American War of 1812, is thought to be the first of its kind to be offered at auction.

The contents of a filling station saved from the bulldozer and then converted into a museum will be offered for sale in July.

Promising to rank among the auction highlights of the summer, Christie’s are to sell the fabled Benson collection of early spoons on June 4.

Although offensive to 20th century mores, ‘The New and Fashionable Game of the Jew’ was deemed a suitable pastime for children at the turn of the 19th century.

With a $10m estimate, what is being billed as the most important single lot of rock and pop memorabilia ever to come up for auction goes on view in London on April 18.

If ever there was a single record that could lay claim to truly starting the Rock and Roll era, it must be Elvis Presley’s first single ‘That’s all right (Mama)’, recorded in Memphis in July 5, 1954.

This exceptional Spanish flintlock sporting gun is dated 1739, but both the gun and case bear the arms of Pope Pius VII, whose papacy was dominated by the Vatican’s troubled relationship with France during the Napoleonic period nearly a century later.

Of more than 2000 different recorded horse brass designs, the most desirable are traditionally the so-called ‘merit awards’ given as prizes at working horse parades.

Silver smallwork is a designated area of the silver market in its own right but even this particular sector has its own sub-divisions.

For those with Cornish ancestors or a general interest in the area’s history, David Lay’s sale of Part I of the Pendarve archive on March 26 in Penzance may well be of interest.

Bassett-Lowke’s model of the bullet-nosed Pacific locomotive and tender, ‘The Coronation’, ranks among the rarest of all British toy trains.

The Wine Investment Association has launched its new code of practice to seek to safeguard the general public against fraud, malpractice and misrepresentation.

At the end of the Second World War, this 18th century flintlock repeating carbine was thrown onto a huge heap of weapons confiscated from German citizens.

At the higher end of the value scale when it comes to British coin collecting are the most eloquent coins of the Scottish series.

A copy of Charles Dickens’s ‘Nicholas Nickleby’ in the original parts is being offered by Dominic Winter on March 6 in South Cerney, Cirencester.

The original conveyance deeds to Aintree Grand National Racecourse, which date back to 1838, are to go under the hammer at Cato Crane in Liverpool on March 6.