Auctioneers

A tiny Oxfam shop in Headington, Oxfordshire, was celebrating after a set of 12 books dropped off by an anonymous donor later sold at Bonhams for £13,000 (£16,640 with premium).

A substantial collection of 18th and 19th century Cape silver, made by European silversmiths practising in South Africa, is coming for sale at Strauss & Co in Johannesberg.

Courtesy of Dava Sobel’s 1995 best-seller, the compelling story of a Yorkshire horologist’s struggle to receive a prize for creating a reliable and accurate method for determining longitude at sea is well known.

Stock of retiring dealer offered at auction includes items with fascinating backgrounds

Two separate lots at the recent books and manuscripts sale held by TW Gaze (26.4% inc VAT) in Diss, Norfolk sold at £20,000.

An unusual, possibly unique stereo viewer from the last decade of the 19th century attracted numerous bids at Auction Team Breker (21.8% buyer’s premium) in Cologne.

Only a very few coin dies have survived from antiquity so there was great interest in the Hellenistic examples offered by Apollo Art Auctions (25% buyer’s premium) on June 8.

A recently discovered floral still-life by Jan Davidsz de Heem sold for €2.8m.

The workers who were given the task in 1869 of demolishing a medieval patrician house in the Bavarian city of Regensburg found much more than they had expected.

Sketches at the Time of the Commencement of British Intercourse with Japan, an album containing 76 watercolours and drawings and 126 wood engravings from the last days of the Edo period, sold for £16,000 at Dominic Winter (22% buyer’s premium).

A recent sale at Canterbury Auction Galleries (20% buyer’s premium) was led by this example of early English furniture: an oak aumbry or dole cupboard.