Auctioneers

The gun Pat Garrett used to kill Billy the Kid has been sold for a world auction record for any firearm at Bonhams in Los Angeles.

This near-complete Böttger Meissen tea set, c.1725, came for sale at Keys of Aylsham on September 1.

As the Silent Generation passes and Baby Boomers choose to divest, large deposits of once fashionable art and antiques are heading for auction in the US.

Siege money or ‘money of necessity’ was minted in Newark in 1646 during the town’s third siege and the last year of the First English Civil War.

Cyrene, founded by Greeks c.631BC in the uplands near present-day Shahhat in Libya, reached the height of its prosperity in the 5th century BC.

On April 14, 1746, two days before the battle that would seal his fate, Charles Edward Stuart held a lavish meal at Culloden House, the highland estate owned by Hanoverian loyalist Duncan Forbes (1685-1747) that had recently been commandeered by Jacobite forces.

Following an upturn in the fortunes of the silver trade in York, an assay office reopened there in 1776 and remained active until final closure in 1858.

Although condition remains a pivotal factor in the Old Master market, a number of lots sold recently in the UK regions suggest increasing interest for works that represent a promising restoration project.

An intriguing variation on an Old Master sparked a strong competition at Parker Fine Art (25% buyer’s premium) earlier this summer.

The rarest Scottish provincial town marks, known only from spoons and ladles, are those of Stonehaven, Ellon and Keith.

A tin of coins and medals consigned to Morton & Eden’s autumn sale included a number of early pieces from the American colonial period.

Starting his collection with a 1568 sixpence purchased in Swanage in 1957, marine insurance broker Christopher Comber (1944-2019) formed a remarkable collection of Elizabeth I coins.

Many of the lots in a June 16 sale of books, maps and pictures held by Thomson Roddick (18% buyer’s premium) in Carlisle came from the collections of the late Dr George Kozikowski of Skye, a microbiologist, archaeologist and antiquarian of Polish descent.

Collection now up for sale was owned by soldier killed in Korea but kept safe by his brother

The sale at Sovereign Rarities on September 21 includes this Charles I (1625-49), silver pattern unite (20 shillings) dated 1630.

While 19th century American-made needlework quilts can often sell for substantial four and even five-figure sums, it is a rare that an English example brings as much as this one offered at Tennants (20% buyer’s premium) on August 21.

Watches with military associations carry a certain cachet with collectors.

With the unusual provenance of having been dug out of a London sewer during excavations in 1930, the 15th or early 16th century copper alloy candlestick shown here underlined the truth of the maxim that where there’s muck there’s brass.

This iron model of a hawk above is a striking example of a jizai okimono – lifelike, articulated animal figures popular in the last decades of Edo-period and Meiji Japan.