Collectables

Coming up trumps at Stamford auctioneers Batemans (20% buyer’s premium) on May 6 was a full pack of 52 Georgian playing cards.

The autograph sale held by Swann (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) in New York on May 4 included a musical quotation in the hand of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, the theme from the finale of his Orchestral Suite No.3 in G Major (Op.55), which sold for $14,000 (£10,855).

A lamp from a wagon that once travelled a 50-mile stretch of track linking the docks of Cardiff to the collieries of the south Wales valleys was hammered down in Bristol at £6300 (plus 18% buyer’s premium).

One of the surprises at Peter Wilson’s April 26- 27 sale was a tinplate clockwork pram pushed by a woman stamped Burnett Limited, London, Made in England.

‘Group lots should be viewed’ was the wise recommendation in the catalogue description of this mixed bag offered at Tennants’ (18.5% buyer’s premium) sale of vintage costume, textiles and dolls at Leyburn on May 13.

Over three busy days in May Dominic Winter (19.5% buyer’s premium) mounted a three-catalogue sale that presented close on 1600 lots in all.

The general sale at Dominic Winter was followed on May 11 by one of motoring literature, automobilia and historic bicycles and accessories – a 620-lot auction held in conjunction with Transport Collector Auctions.

The annual London Map Fair unites the classic and the quirky of cartographic history under one roof as a host of international dealers show up for what organisers boast is the world’s largest event of its kind.

The builders were still applying the finishing touches to book dealership Maggs Bros’ new premises in London’s Bedford Square on the morning before the shop was officially opened with a party on May 23.

A gig poster advertising as the headline act ‘Britain’s Fabulous Disc Stars!’ sold for £28,000 at the Roger Jones (20% buyer’s premium inc VAT) May 23 auction.

First Professor of Cornish Studies at Exeter University and Bard of Gorseth Kernow, Charles Thomas (1928-2016) was both a prolific writer and a bibliophile.