Collectables

Two rather different toy sales went under the hammer early last month. October 4 saw Christie’s South Kensington (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) put some 465 lots predominantly devoted to dolls under the hammer while six days later Bonhams & Brooks (15/10% buyer’s premium) offered an even bigger, more general 630-lot mix of playthings ranging from Dinkys and lead figures to dolls, soft toys and tinplate.

THE nationwide buyer-base of Lays auctioneers was reflected by concerns far beyond the Duchy – Bath dealers, for instance, were particularly worried about selling on to American clients. However, a £213,076 total from 1906 lots was proof enough that business is still there to be done.

Like English haggis and Scotch rarebit, the idea of Welsh Whisky is somewhat dubious. A few years ago a Welsh bottling company began to market a product called Welsh Whisky, which won praise from American connoisseurs but was just Scotch whisky in disguise.The company subsequently ceased trading.

PROBABLY the greatest success story of recent years, the railwayana market fostered and virtually cornered by Ian Wright at Sheffield continues to flourish.

Several auction records were broken when Christie’s New York sold the library of Abel E. Berland in an October 8-9 sale that saw 90 per cent of lots sold for a premium-inclusive total of $14.4m (£9.8m).

Manufacturing expertise and a fondness for the hard stuff are notable traits among Scottish folk, and they were well married in this miniature copper whisky still, pictured, offered by Glasgow auctioneers McTear’s (10 per cent buyer’s premium) on September 11.

There were few plate books in this year’s Arts of India sale at Christie’s, held on September 27, but one notable result was provided by Emily Eden’s Portraits of the Princes & Peoples of India, published by J. Dickinson in 1844.

“For the really top things there’s no shortage of buyers, but the middle ground is weaker,” affirmed Stephen Mould of Sotheby’s wine department. “If you’ve got large parcels that depend on the trade, then bidders are more cautious. But if you’ve got small quantities of the finest things there are plenty of private buyers prepared to pay good money.”

Jean-Vital Remy was one of the most determined and assiduous Dinky toy collectors. Over a relatively short space of time – around 15 years from the mid-1980s – this Belgian enthusiast built up an enormous assemblage of French and English Dinkys spanning the entire production period. His desire for comprehensiveness and determination to acquire pieces with unusual colour or design variations made him a formidable adversary when it came to buying, whether at auctions or in shops or fairs.

FRANCE: The 2nd part of the J. Lemarchand Collection of trains and toys came under the hammer in Chartres (Lelièvre-Maiche-Paris) in a 680-lot sale on September 15 & 16.

Stanley Matthews’ 1953 FA Cup winner’s medal, sold for £20,000 to TV presenter and Stoke fan Nick Hancock, was the lot on which national media publicity focussed, but the Football Memorabilia sale held by Sotheby’s on September 21 – one of the first sales at the new Olympia salerooms – also contained some 150 lots of programmes, match cards, magazines and related ephemera.

UK: THE dealer charged in connection with the theft of the German Enigma cypher machine from Bletchley Park has been told he could go to jail after admitting receiving stolen goods.

ISAAC WARE’S Complete Body of Architecture, a calf bound 1768 edition illustrated, or rather “adorned” with engraved plates of “...plans and elevations from original designs... in which are interspersed some designs of Inigo Jones”, was one of a small group of architectural books that brought most of the higher bids in this Bearne's sale on 21 August.

Pictured are two modern firsts, both in rather chipped jackets, from the book section of a September 7 sale held by Mallams of Oxford. P.G. Wodehouse’s Uncle Fred in Springtime of 1939 was sold for £100, while Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop of the previous year reached £210.

SPECIALIST collectors and dealers don’t seem to have a closed season, certainly not in the arms and armour world and they turned up in strength at Weller & Dufty in Birmingham on 25 July.

With their sinister gliding gait and shrill cries of Exterminate! Exterminate! the Daleks sent small children cowering behind the sofa when they first appeared on TV in the 1960s in their bid to rule the Universe. At approximately 8in (20cm) high, however, this particular example of spin-off merchandising from the BBC series Dr Who is more likely to invoke fond nostalgia than fear.

USA: WHEN Henry Koerner’s (1915-1991) oil on board Playing Pretend (21 x 2ft 1in) was offered on home soil at Dargate’s July 10-14 sale in Pittsburgh it made a substantial price, especially as the subject matter, impish children stuck in contorted poses, was commonly visited by the artist and is his most highly rated work.

The annual Hong-Kong coin sale presided over by Baldwin-Ma-Gillio-Monetarium is always a big draw. This one, number 33, including the semi-annual sales at Singapore, is scheduled for August 30.

Depicting the balloons of the Montgolfier and Charles brothers, as well as Blanchard, Lunardi and Garnerin, this folding colour frontispiece plate comes from an anonymously published little volume entitled

AMONG the earlier travel books in the June 14 sale held by Pacific Book Auctions was a 1632 first edition of Bernal Diaz del Castillo’s famous first-hand account of the conquest of Mexico, Historia Verdadera de la Conquesta de la Nueva-España. An ex-Nottingham Free Library copy in a 20th century quarter morocco binding, it had stamps to the title and other pages and a few other shortcomings of condition, but it is an important work and sold at $5000 (£3625).