Auctioneers

The grim mortality rate of 17th century Britain precipitated a taste for memento mori jewellery that reached its height of popularity in the early 1700s.

Sotheby’s Hong Kong’s Asian Art Week was led by the earliest extant court painting by the Italian Jesuit painter Giuseppe Castiglione (1688-1766).

Portraits of the third and fourth prime ministers of Great Britain are among the highlights of a fine collection of British portraiture that comes for sale at Sworders on May 19.

Prices for Hornby 0 Gauge clockwork railway toys have been rather flat for quite a few years now.

Fine collection of British modern novels amassed over decades includes earliest editions with dust jackets

Arabel and her anarchic pet raven, Mortimer, were first introduced in 1974 on the children’s television show Jackanory.

The modest reserve of €2500 for the 13in (34cm) Roman marble torso of a seated man from the 1st or 2nd century left the bidders at Dr Eder (25% buyer’s premium) in Cologne with plenty of upward scope.

From an elephant gun team to a double-decker and general on a hobby horse, good prices are still paid for collectable toys.

Kosuge (Kosuge Toy Industrial Co Ltd), with the trademark KSG in a diamond, was Matsuzo Kosuge.

It is now 10 years since we started Forum Auctions.

Gustave Vichy was born in 1839 to a Parisian watch and clock maker Antoine Michel who, along with his wife, set up the Vichy company in 1862 with the aim of building and selling clocks, mechanical objects and toys.

The association of native American and Scottish Highlander advertising figures with tobacconists began in England and Holland in the 17th century and later spread to America.

An early 19th century wooden peg doll featuring the original costume of a straw bonnet and cream silk dress with a mother of pearl belt, and red leather shoes, has sold for £3000 to a UK collector.

Ian Fleming’s scions will be at Firsts London book fair this year, as they continue to play an important part in both promoting their relative’s books and book collecting as a whole.