Collectables

Our regular listing of books and works on paper auctions the UK and Ireland.

Sovereign Rarities (20% buyer’s premium) conducted its second joint auction with The Royal Mint in the second half of last year.

This rare Umayyad gold dinar dated 105AH (723AD) equalled the auction record for an Islamic coin (or any coin sold in Europe) when it was hammered down at £3.1m at Morton & Eden (20% buyer’s premium).

This bronze Albert Medal, awarded to Lieutenant John Edward Gibbons (1905-71) for saving life at sea, sold for £8000 (plus 20% buyer’s premium) at Bonhams Knightsbridge.

This gold solidus struck in Constantinople features the double portrait of Irene of Athens (c.752-803) who from 797-802 became the first empress regnant of the Byzantine empire.

Accounts of youthful travels in Britain and on a Grand Tour contain often blunt assessments

International Autograph Auctions Ltd has ceased trading and is being placed in voluntary liquidation.

“As soon as the vendor pulled the board from her bag, I recognised something of serious interest.”

Affirming the strength of the market for the best British milled coins, two exceptional English gold issues were among the top prices of this year’s New York International Numismatic Convention auctions.

A clever piece of marketing from the oil company Shell and with slightly saucy automobile-referenced lines, this Valentine dates from a tradition of sending cards to Shell’s female customers who had accounts at their garages. This ran from 1938-75, apart from an interruption during the war years.

Willem Janszoon Blaeu is one of the more famous names in the history of map and globe making and at Christie’s (25/20/13.5/% buyer’s premium), the tiny pocket globe attributed to him shown here was sold for a treble-estimate £230,000.

For a man who has built his career around teddy bears it is a strange quirk of fate that these inoffensive toys make him feel unwell.

Rare book dealer Dr Jörn Günther of Switzerland specialises in manuscripts, miniatures, and rare early printed books from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

In ATG No 2427 we noted the sale at Sotheby’s on December 10, at a very much higher than expected £50,000, of a rare copy of the 1553 translation into ‘Scots English’ of Virgil’s Aeneid by Gavin Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld.

Extraordinarily high prices paid for the works of the Russian writer Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev were noted in ATG No 2425, and there were many more lots of interest in the sale held by Christie’s (25/20/13.5% buyer’s premium) in which they were offered.

Popular in the first decades of the 19th century, the eight-key flute is something of a transitional instrument, retaining many of the characteristics of the earlier baroque flute and the modern instrument.

‘Masterpieces’ from the celebrated collections of Dr Martin Schøyen offered at a recent Christie’s (25/20/13.5% buyer’s premium) sale in London included some real rarities.