Collectables

It is one of the best known moments in sport. Donald Bradman, batsman without peer, arrives at the crease in his final test match at the Oval on August 14 1948, requiring just four runs for a Test career average of 100.

Subastas Segre (16% buyer’s premium) held their monthly sale from May 20 to 22. In the picture catalogue, top price was the double-estimate €30,000 (£22,060) for a complete set of Goya’s Caprichos, catalogued as First Edition but not in ideal condition. A 3ft 3in (1m) square abstract oil on canvas of 1982 by Fernando Zobel (1942-1984), whose work is highly regarded in Spain, made €23,700 (£17,425).

Dollar rate deters American teddy bear enthusiasts: Daniel Agnew, the teddy bear specialist at Christie’s South Kensington (17.5/10% buyer’s premium), felt the market was a bit softer than usual for the first of his bi-annual teddy sales on June 10.

Quimper collectors will no doubt recognise this plate as quite a rarity. Manufactured by Henriot, c.1917, the design depicts Uncle Sam offering his support to the French people within a Stars and Stripes border.

A Rolls-Royce & Bentley sale held by Bonhams at Towcester Racecourse on June 21 included a number of sales brochures, catalogues, handbooks, manuals, etc. amongst the automobilia.

With preparations getting underway for the Nelson tricentenary celebrations in 2005, autograph collector and postal historian Gavin Littaur felt the time was right to sell an autograph letter, signed ‘Nelson & Bronte’, sent to William Churchey thanking him for his good wishes for the continuance of the peace.

d?f[lungu in Africa: Art from the Colonial Period, 1840-1940, by Michael Stevenson and Michael Graham-Stewart. ISBN 0620304626. Available from Thomas Heneage Art Bookshop, 42 Duke Street, London SW1Y 6DJ Tel: 020 7930 9223 Price £30hb and £22sb

Illuminated Manuscripts and their Makers, by Rowan Watson, published by V&A Publications. ISBN 1851773851 £30hb

John Hassell (1868-1948) produced designs for some 600 to 700 posters – including one for the British Vacuum Cleaner Company depicting a lecherous bit of machinery chasing a nubile parlour-maid – but by far his best known work is Skegness Is So Bracing.

There has been considerable reportage on the subject of commemorative medals at auction recently, and the considerable museum participation in auction sales. So spare a thought for the dealer who issues fixed-price lists. Two fine English fixed-price catalogues have recently thudded through my letterbox.

Apart from their specialist commemorative medal sale, Morton & Eden (15% buyer’s premium) busied themselves with a general 1025-lot sale on May 21 which made a total of £592,877. This fine result was coupled with a reasonably small failure rate of just 12 per cent. This is about the norm for more specialised events but hard to achieve in a general sale.

NEW York’s Posteritati Movie Posters, among the world’s leading specialists in the field, hold an exhibition of vintage posters from the MGM musicals of the 1930s to 1950s at their Manhattan gallery throughout July.

THE series of chunky Perspex and silver-plated table lighters made by Dunhill in the inter-war years are always welcome auction visitors. The majority depict aquatic subjects – they are sometimes called fish tank lighters – and usually sell in the £300-600 bracket so it was something of a surprise to see the example right offered at Dorking, auctioneers P.F. Windibank (10% buyer’s premium) sell at £2800 on May 24.

Nineteenth century walking sticks, canes, umbrellas and riding crops were one of John Stewart Parry’s favourite collecting areas – he had more than 180 of them in myriad different forms from dogs’ heads to seashells. Offered on the fifth and final day of Bruton Knowles’ sale in May– the best of the series in terms of atmosphere, said auctioneer Simon Chorley – they all sold, albeit at auction rather than retail levels.

POSTCARD collecting is believed to be second only to philately as the world’s most popular collecting hobby so here is early warning of what is guaranteed to be a very popular event, The Picture Postcard Show 2003 which will be held at the Royal Horticultural Halls, Westminster, London SW1 from August 27 to 30.

To you and me it’s just a 1950s enamel station sign but to railwayana enthusiasts – and to Gloucestershire Worcestershire Railwayana Auctions who are currently selling it at their first private treaty auction – this is quite simply the most desirable ‘totem’ ever to come on the market. So what’s all the fuss about?

The combination of a single-owner collection in a specialist niche corner of the market with a not over-large and mostly market-fresh selection of realistically estimated material were the keys to the warm reception that greeted Sotheby’s (20/12% buyer’s premium) sale of Scientific instruments in their Olympia rooms on May 28. All bar 15 of the 155 lots, just short of 90 per cent (92 per cent by value) changed hands for a total of £262,350.

Greg Martin is a name synonymous with the finest and the most spectacularly expensive of American firearms. In this respect the June 16 Greg Martin Auctions sale will live up to expectations with a rare 1849 Colt revolver, but most British attention will be focused on a group of Nelson memorabilia which includes Vice Admiral Collingwood’s copy of Nelson’s standing orders for battle, drawn up on the Victory on October 9-10, 1805 and signed Nelson & Brontë.

Canadian-based eBay seller gstark didn’t need to include the words “extremely rare” in his auction listing for a jade green Sony TR-55 transistor radio. Fifteen ardent bidders already knew that.

Christie’s have helped negotiate the sale to the Victoria and Albert Museum of the Castlereagh gold inkstand created by Paul Storr and Philip Rundell for the British diplomat Viscount Castlereagh (1769-1822) in 1818.