Auctioneers

With hindsight, the boast made by the Flying Steam Company – 'To China in Twenty-Four Hours Certain' – was a tad ambitious.

A note penned in December 1963 by Mary Elizabeth Smith from The Mendips, Menlove Avenue, Liverpool, to a Miss V Stoker of 54 Pirton Road, Hitchin, sold for £1300 to a UK online bidder at Wolverhampton saleroom Cuttlestones (17.5% buyer’s premium) on March 19.

Classic Hammer Horror film posters are always popular at auction. This example below was probably the first UK quad release of The Hound of The Baskervilles (1959) starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.

This set of 11 toby jugs modelled as the Allied commanders of the First World War made by Wilkinson will be offered at Skinner in Massachusetts from April 12-22.

While the Grand Hotel, Birmingham, may not have the same ring as Hotel California, in the Sixties it was the place to check in. And even leave afterwards.

The late Michael Armstrong was such a film fanatic that when the local cinema closed in his home town in 1993 he opened his own mini replica in his garage, complete with recycled fixtures and fittings.

Talented amateur artist enjoyed riding excursions with the author to antiquarian sites

More Mod Brit delights from the Freer collection kept in a house full to bursting point

Portraits boosted takings at Mallams’ (24% buyer’s premium) latest picture sale in Oxford.

They sang about a Champagne Supernova but ‘24 large cans of quality lager’ were more to their taste when Oasis stipulated their needs for band and crew at an early gig.

Thirteen lots in the exotically named Dr Atomicas Journey into Cool auction at Bishop & Miller in Stowmarket on May 7 have been consigned from an individual who worked for 30 years in the film industry with some of the biggest names.

Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty, has been a favourite subject in art since ancient times.

The name Abbey Road has gone far beyond its significance as a smart street in north London thanks to renowned music studios and a seminal album

Experiments with porcelain at the Swansea factory began in 1814 with the arrival of William Billingsley and Samuel Walker from the Nantgarw China Works.

Publishers’ file copies of the first 199 issues of War Picture Library, pocket-sized and essentially pictorial publications of the years 1958-63, brought a bid of £3250 in a Comic Book Auctions (19% buyer’s premium) timed sale.

This gold-mounted trefoil shaped rock crystal tazza, dated to the 18th century, will feature in the sale of antiques, works of art, silver and jewellery at Veritas in Lisbon on April 14-15.