Collectables

A round-up of art and antiques news from the previous seven days, including a couple's collection of ancient Greek coins being sold through specialist firm Silbury Coins

The Oscar Wilde Collection formed over 60 years by bibliophile and former dealer in Oriental antiques Jeremy Mason prompted collectors to come out in force and was 100% sold at Bonhams (28/27% buyer’s premium) in Knightsbridge.

Ahead of a major two-day postcard collector festival, a dealer explains the draw of the most popular types

This seven-panel peepshow, an elaborate advertising campaign for Shell Oil, is offered for $2850 by Philip Salmon & Company at the Ephemera Society of America’s annual fair.

Georgian regalia from two famous Scottish regiments was sold by Railtons (20% buyer’s premium) in Wooler, Northumberland, on February 20.

Our regular listing of books and works on paper sales

Medals expert familiar to millions through the Antiques Roadshow chats about his latest book telling a very personal story.

A medal with nine clasps from a soldier who was wounded in the head and twice in the thigh during the Peninsular War stood out in a recent sale held by Stanley Gibbons Baldwin’s (23% buyer’s premium).

Latest result for a ‘not in the face of the enemy’ award underlines how such honours have become a popular collecting field

If you look closely at both Lady Butler and Alphonse de Neuville’s paintings of what is probably the most famous British colonial action of the 19th century – Rorke’s Drift – you can pick out a man with a long, thick red beard wearing a blue tunic.

Despite the brief cataloguing of lot 129 in the Ellis Willis & Beckett (21.5% buyer’s premium) sale, the £4200 hammer price on February 17 indicated that bidders had fought it out for something special.

A piece of British naval history and polar exploration history appeared at Millea Bros (25% buyer’s premium) in Boonton, New Jersey.

Following Operation Barbarossa, Germany’s invasion of Russia, Winston Churchill proposed the Arctic Convoys to deliver supplies to the Soviet Union via Iceland.

With the recent retirement of Allard Schierenberg and Jeanne van Bruggen, the remaining stock of Dutch dealership Antiquariaat Junk will be sold at auction.

The Private Library Book Company is offering for sale online the library of John Russell Taylor (1935-2025), a collection of over 20,000 books, many by the renowned author and critic himself.

Inaugural Forum standalone auction achieves impressive results in south London

A Mouseman single wardrobe with panelled adzed decoration sold for £7400 against a guide of £4000-6000 at Summersgills (18% buyer’s premium) in Easingwold, North Yorkshire.

A decade ago V&A curators used an X-ray to discover what was inside a vintage Christmas cracker made in the 1920s by the Tom Smith company without having to actually pull it. This revealed a small chocolate.