Adam Partridge

ATG’s selection of hammer highlights over the past week includes English delftware, an early acoustic gramophone, Thunderbirds artwork and a Qing period double gourd vase.

With estimates from £300-£15,000, here are five previews from upcoming sales this week.

Every collecting field starts out with a broad umbrella title: classic cars, for instance. Easy. However, as you descend through the levels it not only drops into sub-sections, but veers off to the side, so you also get automobilia, the ephemera surrounding those cars.

ATG’s selection of hammer highlights over the past week include a portrait of a red bonnet-wearing lady, a Beswick huntsman figure and slipware jug from the time of Charles I.

From studio pottery in Macclesfield to jewellery in Birmingham, here are five previews from upcoming sales this week.

Adam Partridge hosts an Antiques Hunting Weekend at Dorking this Saturday and Sunday, including a visit to The Dorking Halls Antiques Fair.

Down but not out, a smashed Qing porcelain famille vase sold for an unexpected £94,000 (plus 18% buyer’s premium) at Adam Partridge in Macclesfield on June 28.

Crowds descended on Bolton at the weekend to see the sell-out auction of the property of steeplejack and TV personality Fred Dibnah.

I interviewed Fred Dibnah once, as a wet-behind-the-ears journalism student in Preston. He had just come down from the third-tallest church spire in the country at St Walburge’s, which dominates the city skyline at 309ft high.

Collectors can often be as fascinating as a collection itself. Take Reginald J Cheetham, an extraordinary man who amassed a huge array of items now coming up for auction at the Adam Partridge saleroom.