Collectables

Leica cameras proved one of the must-have auction prizes in recent sales with record prices at Westlicht in Vienna and Bonhams Hong Kong.

A gold sword that belonged to the bodyguard of Empress Catherine II of Russia is estimated at £40,000-60,000 in Thomas Del Mar’s December 5 Antique Arms, Armour and Militaria sale in West Kensington, London.

This Nathaniel Mills presentation snuff box was given to Isambard K. Brunel and will be included in Jones & Jacob’s sale on December 5 in Watlington, Oxfordshire.

Mallett are about to celebrate their first Christmas in their lavish new home, Ely House in Dover Street, Mayfair, where they moved earlier this year when the rents and rates of nearby Bond Street became too much.

This Märklin 0 gauge 20 volt electric train is a model of the ‘Earl Marischal’ (no 2002), a LNER P2 Mikado 2-8-2 locomotive built in 1935 to pull passenger trains on the Edinburgh/Aberdeen line.

This carved oak box (with later leather case) is believed to have been the property of the poet Robert Burns and dates from his days as an exciseman.

This front-cover artwork board for the ‘Eagle’ will feature in Comic Book Auctions’ online sale which closes on November 27.

Advertising ephemera from two large collections is on offer at Chippenham Auction Rooms on November 24 in Wiltshire.

The strong historical appeal and the internet are two reasons for the growing interest in postcards, says David Smith, who runs IPM Promotions’ monthly postcard and collectors’ fair in Central London.

It had previously been thought that Daniel Fahrenheit only ever made two of the original mercury thermometers he invented in 1714, both of which are in the collection of the Museum Boerhaave, in Leiden in the Netherlands.

It was the emergence of the very useful but somewhat hazardous ‘strike anywhere’ match in the 1830s that necessitated the fashion for vesta cases.

Wine labels from the old and celebrated Sandeman collection provided 63 lots to Woolley & Wallis’ sale in Salisbury last month.

The Anne Frank House in Amsterdam has acquired an important collection of letters, photos and documents relating to Otto Frank, the father of Anne Frank.

Modern firsts from the library of Clive Hirschhorn produced plenty of strong and many record prices at Bloomsbury Auctions but a number of significant works did not sell. As such, this was an important sale for illustrating the vagaries of the market.

Spink are to offer the Indian Mutiny Victoria Cross awarded to Sergeant Major (later Lieutenant) Peter Gill of the Loodiana Regiment for saving the life of an officer and his family at Benares and seeing off 27 mutinous Sepoys with only his sergeant’s sword, on June 4, 1857.

This Football Association of Wales 1893-94 Season green velvet cap with braided gilt wire tassel and embroidered dragon, will appear in the November 21 sale at Halls of Shrewsbury.

This DFC medal group of a British Spitfire pilot who survived the war despite crashing and being given up for dead by his colleagues has an estimate of £8000-10,000 in Plymouth Auction Rooms’ November 21 sale.

At the tender age of 15 young ‘Bob’ Wroughton became the world’s first Boy Scout, and had a glittering career of success in front of him. Yet just seven short years later, he became one of the first to die in the killing fields of the First World War.

Spink have announced that they are to offer for sale a very rare Richard III Angel found near the site of the Battle of Bosworth in Leicestershire.

Printed in German, this Judaica booklet relates to the siege of Prague by the Prussians led by Frederick the Great in 1757.