Letter

Consignment of private material brought up copyright and privacy challenges

Chorley’s (25% buyer’s premium) first dedicated Islamic & Indian sale section was based around a single consignment: an East India Company (EIC) archive that came by direct descent from Sir Charles William Rouse Boughton (1747-1821).

Such messages from second-class passengers on the liner are some of the rarest to be offered at auction

The highlight of the latest Militaria and Ethnographica sale at Tennants (24% buyer’s premium) was an extraordinarily detailed first-hand account of shipwreck in the Indian Ocean.

Bonhams offered the Contents of Monreith House: A Historical Seat of Clan Maxwell in two July sales from its Edinburgh saleroom.

A letter by Carl Linnaeus (1707-78), father of modern botany and taxonomy, has set an auction record in his native Sweden.

Thomas Annan’s famous book is now rated as ‘one of the finest photographic works of the 19th century’

It all started, as things often do – by pure chance.

Two personal letters written by William Wilberforce, the Hull-born anti-slavery campaigner and influential politician, were on offer at East Yorkshire saleroom Hawleys (22% buyer’s premium) on June 13.

A four-page letter written by Edward ‘Bill’ Wilson to a friend during the early days of the doomed British Antarctic Expedition sold for £19,000 at Fieldings (26% buyer’s premium) in Stourbridge.

The sales at Stargardt (20% buyer’s premium) in Berlin are an important rendezvous for autograph dealers and collectors.

Ahead of a very busy period for the trade, we kick off our guide to the events coming up with a London fair marking the 250th anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence.

Two choice British documents emerged across two different sales at Amherst, New Hampshire firm RR Auction (25% buyer’s premium).