Collectables

Among the miniatures and novelties at Dreweatt Neate’s 2 April sale, there was especial interest in a 37-lot private collection of card-cases amassed over 50 years by an Oxfordshire vendor.

A private collection of 99 microscopes was the highlight of this three-day sale at John Bellmans. No fewer than nine examples realised four-figure sums, the best seller being a 19th century lacquered brass binocular petrological microscope by Watson & Sons which sold to a private collector from London at £3100.

Topographical views of Valetta Harbour, Malta, continue to be one of the most solid performers in the salerooms. The latest quality example to turn up in the provinces was this signed Girolamo Gianni (1837-1887) oil on card, right, offered at the Chichester rooms of Stride’s (15% buyer’s premium) on February 28 with an estimate of £4000-6000.

THIS Saturday sale was one of the series of dolls and toys specialist events extending the West Yorkshire auctioneers’ Andrew Harley's reputation in the niche market beyond the more frequent antiques events.

David Leach – 20th Century Ceramics by Emmanuel Cooper and Kathy Niblett, published by Richard Dennis Publications. ISBN 903685884 £25hb ISBN 0903685892 £20sb

Auctioneer Neil Freeman said that he could not remember a high price for multiple cased fish during his 20 years’ experience in the market for antique piscatoria. This 5ft 10in by 4ft 11in (1.78 x 1.50m) cabinet was one of a pair containing 15 brown trout caught by the ninth Earl of Coventry during a fruitful fly-fishing holiday in Ireland in 1879.

Coming up in Buckingham: A clockwork model of a V5 Citroën half-track – the first vehicle to cross the Sahara during the 1922 trans-Sahara expedition – is expected to make over £3000 when it is sold by Vectis, the Teesside auction house, in April.

The classic car market has received a twin injection of interest, with Sotheby’s seeming set to return to the fray and a new face entering the Olympia arena. H&H Classic Auctions of Warrington have established a global reputation with their sales at Buxton, in Derbyshire’s Peak District. Riding high on the success of a recent European record for a Mercedes Benz 300SL (£174,000), they are now looking to expand into London.

Coming up in ....Hendon: The Bowers archive, depicting some of the most historic and important monochrome images of the motoring industry dating from the early part of the 20th century to the 1950s, will be included in Bonhams’ sale of Collectors’ Motor Cars, Cycles, Automobilia, Toys & Models at the RAF Museum, Hendon on April 28.

It is not now often that a collection which has not been available for study for a large number of years comes to the market. Dix Noonan Webb announce that they have recently been consigned an extensive collection of coins and medals formed by the late Alan Beeton.  

The twice-a-year Baldwin, Ma, Gillio, Monetarium sale of Far Eastern coins this time took place in Singapore on March 6. There has been a sea-change in the type of goods offered. Hitherto Chinese coins of all periods have been on sale. The Chinese have a penchant for dollar-sized silver coins. Indeed there are many varieties which were struck for major cities in that vast country. What has changed is that in this sale there was an emphasis on these later coins.

Russian coins seem to fall into a category all their own. Like papal coins and medals they have a worldwide appeal. Perhaps this is because since 1917 there has been a diaspora of Russians.

ON LEARNING that first edition copies of her first two Harry Potter books were to to be sold at Woolley & Wallis’February 12 auction to benefit Action Aid and Children in Need, author J.K. Rowling agreed to add her signature to both books and donated a signed copy of the fourth book in the series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Here’s something you’re unlikely to see much this century, lifesize or otherwise: a cap-wearing boy on a go-kart, commonly known to collectors of Matchbox toys as a Soapbox Racer. It’s the cover lot of Vectis Auction Group’s Matchbox Magic 8 sale, which takes place next week at the Community Hall in Buckingham.

LAST month, 14 notebooks containing the gruesome diaries of Anatole Deibler, France’s last public executioner, were sold in Paris at Beaussant-Lefèvre (17.94% buyer’s premium) for €85,000 (£55,600).

Film poster vendor adds to exclusivity of sale by destroying second copy: COLLECTORS have reacted with outrage and disbelief to a statement from the vendors of an apparently unique film poster that a second copy had been deliberately destroyed to protect the sale’s exclusivity.

The annual ski poster sale at Christie’s South Kensington (17.5/10% buyer’s premium), timed as usual to coincide with the winter sports season, jumped into action earlier this month. The auctioneers’ 273-lot offering on February 13 took in all the main long-established European resorts plus some from further afield, and attracted its usual crowd of aficionados in person or on the phone.

APART from sporadic themed sales held by provincial auctioneers, Camard’s main rival on the French poster auction scene is the Paris-based dealer Frédéric Lozada, who has instituted regular 1000-lot sales in Versailles (the one in late October brought over £250,000) and, most recently, in Lille, where he offered 1120 lots under the Wattebled hammer on December 11-12.

A Ptolemaic world map from the Nuremburg Chronicle was sold for £12,000 (£7500) as part of a December 12 sale of maps and prints held by Swann, while bid to $6000 (£3750) was the Map to illustrate Prince Maximilien of Wied’s Travels in the Interior of North America reproduced right.

THESE specialist toy and train auctioneers, Barry Potter, must be one of the only, if not the only, ones to set up mini-fairs by allowing dealers to sell from stands at the back of the saleroom.