Auctioneers

Bids of £100 and upwards bought bidders a history of the English hearth and home among the Crowther lots at Cheffins on June 13-14, where 80% of the lower-priced items went to private buyers.

A pocket watch worn by Lord Nelson during the Battle of Trafalgar and probably given to him after his triumph at the Battle of the Nile is to be offered at auction next month.

Pitched at £100-150, a small North American Native woven pouch attracted interest from London, Continental and US specialists at Tennants’ (23% buyer’s premium) Militaria & Ethnographica offering at Leyburn.

It was catalogued as 19th century, with a replaced plate, later back batons, small chips and wear, age cracks and the gilt painted surface was thick and not original.

Some 240 lots in a recent two-day book sale in Norfolk came from the library of local authors and collectors David and Patricia Cory, with science fiction, fantasy, ghost stories and crime fiction very much in evidence.

Comprising some 3000 books that range in date from 1473-1840, one of the finer collection of books on agriculture ever assembled will be dispersed by Forum Auctions in a July 10-11 sale that runs to more than 800 lots.

Stuttgart auction house Nagel (33% buyer’s premium) held its summer sale of Asian art in Salzburg having acquired an impressive array of quality pieces from European and other collections.

Having successfully dispersed the collection of Lalique glass formed by Hans and Gertrud Mueller in March this year, Sotheby’s Australia is now selling the couple’s collection of other European Art Glass.

It was the last flickerings of the dynasty which took salvage from the demolition site and put it back into the drawing room.

This hitherto unknown iron – part of select group of perhaps a dozen very early golf clubs from the late 17th or early 18th century – emerged at Gorringe’s in Lewes on June 26.

Art Deco bronze and ivory figures continue to do well – despite the imminent legislation that could render some of them illegal to sell.

“The best piece in the sale,” enthused auctioneer Richard Harrison in reference to a Meiji Kazaridana cabinet sold for £11,000 at Mitchells (20% buyer’s premium) at Cockermouth on June 13-15.

A good helping of late Victorian pictures featured among the top prices on June 6 at Lawrences (20% buyer’s premium) of Bletchingley in Surrey.

Three modestly valued works in regional sales including a painting by a pioneer of Iraqi modern art.

Christie’s has added a top-end sale of 19th century art to its calendar of New York auctions in October.

Dating from 1944, the ink, watercolour and gouache artwork shown belowwas made by Russell H Tandy to illustrate the cover of The Secret in the Old Attic, the 21st of Carolyn Keene’s ‘Nancy Drew’ mysteries.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

In what can be a doleful time for Doulton, encouraging words about the factory’s output from auctioneer Geoff Shepherd at ceramics specialist Kingham & Orme (22% buyer’s premium).

From her Dorset cottage, artist and print-maker Rena Gardiner (1929-99) produced more than 40 guidebooks to historic places, buildings and the countryside, all of which she wrote, illustrated with drawings made directly onto litho plates and printed herself.