Collectables

A group lot of works by or pertaining to CS Lewis performed rather better than its modest guide at Scottish firm Taylors Auction Rooms (26% buyer’s premium).

While TS Eliot’s poem 'The Waste Land' had appeared in book form in the US in 1922 – and in two magazines the same year – the edition published by Leonard and Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press in Richmond, Surrey in 1923 was the first in the UK.

The latest Homes & Interiors sale at Sworders included an extraordinary and highly personal relic from the Waterloo battlefield: a silver-mounted inkwell made from the ear of a war horse.

A round-up of art and antiques news from the previous seven days, including a Leica camera taking a six-figure sum in Austria

Back in July 2019, Lawrences in Crewkerne set a new high for a Mouseman carving when a pair of elephant bookends by master carver Stan Dodds (1928-2012) sold at £10,000.

On July 23 London-based specialist coin and medal auction house Morton & Eden is offering a complete set of 56 Umayyad gold dinars dating from years 77 to 132 in the Hijra calendar (696-750AD).

A recent rare books sale at Heritage Auctions (25% buyer’s premium) in the US delivered strong performances for a handful of coveted 20th century firsts in dust jackets.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish books and works on paper sales

A rare poster heralding the birth of the British punk movement hammered for a massive £43,000 (plus 24% buyer’s premium) at Omega Auctions on July 1.

A fine example of the Libertas Americana silver medal is estimated to fetch between £50,000-80,000 at Anderson & Garland’s Fine Silver and Objects of Vertu auction in Newcastle on July 22.

Rolling to top lot honours in New York at Swann Auction Galleries (25% buyer’s premium) was a 1929 poster for the long defunct automotive brand Pierce-Arrow.

The notorious Victorian-era erotic magazine 'The Pearl' (subtitled 'Journal of Facetiae and Voluptuous Reading') was published by William Lazenby in London between July 1879 and December 1880.