Collectables

“They think it’s all over... it is now!”

The First World War shattered not just lives but also perceptions of the ‘natural order’ of things across Europe and how it was ruled.

It may not look much today, but this camera was the latest cutting-edge piece of technology when it was first released for sale in 1899 – and it helped lay the foundations for the future of film and moving pictures. Then it retailed for £30, now it has just sold at auction in Surrey by Lawrences of Bletchingley for £7800.

A newly established firm of numismatic auctioneers, Wilkes & Curtis, are aiming to break into the marketplace by offering a fixed buyer’s premium of 10%.

A rare late-18th century George Adams Junior combined planetarium and tellurian that sold at Bonhams includes a reference to the ‘Georgian Planet’ engraved on the top plate. Today that planet is better known as Uranus, which was first observed by William Herschel on March 13, 1781, although he initially recorded it as a comet.

It all started when Phil Sylvester was a lad, as serious collecting often does.

Leonard Joel of Melbourne will be marking the 50th anniversary of the Beatles arriving to tour Australia by offering a collection of photographs taken of the group in Adelaide.

This bizarrely dressed young man is the 23-year-old Alfred Hitchock, the film director who went on to make Psycho, North by North West, The Birds and Vertigo.

A very rare Allcock Ariel reel with its original calf leather case sold for a wholly unexpected £6600 at Westenhanger Auctioneers (20% buyer’s premium) in Stanford, near Ashford, on April 13.

It was sovereign territory at Baldwin’s once more earlier this month when they took £430,000 for an Edward VIII gold proof example dated 1937 and £320,000 for an Elizabeth II example dated 1953.

Designed and manufactured by the Siemens factory in Woolwich from 1929, the 200 Series dial telephone (aka the Neophone) is today considered an Art Deco design classic and the first truly modern telephone.

A near complete working draft written by Bob Dylan for arguably his most famous song, ‘Like a Rolling Stone’, will be offered at Sotheby’s in New York this summer.

An item with an interesting local connection which is for sale at this Saturday’s Norwich Fleamarket is a rare Victorian large folio of European brass rubbings collected by a Norwich cleric.

Spink have set a new record for any English silver coin at £330,000, paid for the finest known example of the Reddite, an extremely rare Crown of Charles II dating to 1663.

A unique silver penny dug up in a field near Nottingham last November has revealed the existence of a previously unknown mint during the reign of King Stephen (1135-54).

The rare First World War German ship’s bell featured in ATG No 2133 has found a very suitable home – the National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN) at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.

Images and footage of the First World War seem to be featuring prominently on TV at the moment, no doubt part of the extra attention engendered by the marking of the centenary of the outbreak of the conflict in 1914.

South London auctioneers Rosebery’s sold the Masonic collection of Albert Edward Collins Nice (1898-1969) as the first tranche of their quarterly fine art sale that covered three days and three catalogues.

The British Postal Museum & Archive (BPMA) has revised its policy for sales of duplicates following controversy surrounding last July’s Sotheby’s auction.

Theophilus Jones, a private in the Durham Light Infantry, achieved the unfortunate distinction of being the first soldier to be killed on British soil during the First World War.