Collectables

Once thought to have been produced in the Black Forest region of Germany, chess sets like the one offered at Ewbank’s (30% buyer’s premium) on June 23, used to be called Luther sets.

A Cornish saleroom offered over 300 enamel signs, advertising memorabilia, pump globes, vehicle mascots and collectables from a single-owner collection.

Recent advertising highlights from UK sales and an Italian auction

Rather than the rich and famous it was this photograph of three haggard workers that caught the eye in a Cincinnati saleroom.

Looking more like a sale brochure when unopened, the embossed front cover shown below in fact conceals a rare 1906 stereoscopic viewer.

Victorian and Edwardian pottery butcher’s slabs made to display lard, butter and margarine are relatively frequent visitors to UK salerooms.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions held on thesaleroom.com

Anyone sitting through a slideshow of images from an extraordinary photograph collection of Indian, south-east Asian, and Middle Eastern subjects sold in a US auction could be there for a long time.

Collecting genre is being boosted by fresh bidders with deep pockets who work in the technology sector

Leica cameras of rather different dimensions to normal clicked into action at Chiswick Auctions (25% buyer’s premium).

A group of drawings which helped develop the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew have been temporarily blocked from export in the hope a UK buyer can step in.

Just as stereoscope images became a Victorian collecting craze, another notable photographic fad of the era was the carte de visite

Carolina Valdés Vignoli of Carol Tresor concentrates on collectors’ pieces of mineralogical interest and shipwreck pottery. She is preparing an exhibition of minerals in September at the LAPADA fair in Mayfair.

An early book on cricket from the library of commentator John Arlott has been acquired for the British Library from London dealership Peter Harrington.

A round-up of art and antiques news from the previous seven days, including the book collection of the late Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts being offered at Christie's.

Shown here is a copy in Latin of the 'Quirtii Horatii Flacci' opera, 1823, presented by Charles Dickens to his Latin tutor Richard Shiers (mentioned in a book titled 'The Life of Charles Dickens', p45).

'Antipodum, nobis, incognita': how a great southern land is labelled (“the Antipodes unknown to us”) in one of the first mentions in print.

Our listing of UK and Irish auctions taking place on thesaleroom.com