Charles Miller

Pocket watches owned by Horatio Nelson, Thomas Hardy and Cuthbert Collingwood and consulted throughout the Battle of Trafalgar were sold together as a single lot in London on December 9.

Sustained scrap silver prices of more than £30 an ounce have sent large quantities of middle-of-the-road Georgian and Victorian domestic silver to the melting pot. Today, to sell well above the bullion price, it helps if silver comes with a strong narrative. ATG reports on a few great storytellers.

Builder’s ship models are exactly the kind of old-school exhibits that museums are hiding away in dusty storage or selling off. Fortunately for auction houses, they are instead being welcomed into collections by eager buyers.

Sword linked to former emperor is one of the highlights at London sale held by maritime specialist

This Wedgwood creamware tea or punch pot commemorating the launch of a gun ship at Deptford in 1784 was among 29 lots from the collection of The Worshipful Company of Shipwrights sold by specialist Charles Miller.

The personal photo album of a crew member of a post-war Antarctic whaling factory ship is for sale in April 29 at Charles Miller in London for an estimated £800-1200.

A pair of pistols that were presented by Napoleon just six weeks after his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo hammered at £30,000 in Thomas Del Mar’s sale of Fine Antique Arms, Armour & Militaria held at Olympia Auctions (25% buyer’s premium).

At the same time as a naval arms race was taking place in the years just before the First World War another maritime competition developed in the shape of liners.

A letter from Ernest Shackleton to a supporter, written from South Georgia on the eve of his final departure on the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, was offered at Charles Miller’s (24% buyer’s premium) latest Maritime and Scientific Models, Instruments & Art sale.

Dating from March 1-October 13, 1748, a journal for sale at London maritime specialist Charles Miller’s auction on April 23 was written by Admiral John Byng (1704-57) during the final negotiations of the failed Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle and some eight years before his infamous actions off the coast of Minorca.

A secret copy of a commemorative full-length bronze of Lord Nelson holding a telescope which was sculpted by Princess Louise Duchess of Argyll, the sixth child of Queen Victoria and Albert, was the top lot in maritime specialist Charles Miller’s latest auction.

It is a big move for auctioneer Charles Miller. Well, big in terms of his new premises being larger and taller. Not so big in terms of huge distance, however.

The SS Normandie was both the apogee and the nadir of the Art Deco movement.

Interest in wireless telegraphy, that was piqued when Guglielmo Marconi successfully sent a message from Poldhu, Cornwall to St John’s, Newfoundland in 1910, prompted many amateurs to build and develop their own sets based on the ‘Coherer’ principle for sending and receiving Morse code.

Despite being a copy by a little-known Norfolk painter, ‘authentic’ portrait makes remarkable price

Rising to be Admiral of the Fleet during the War of the Spanish Succession, Sir Chaloner Ogle (1680-1750) had a distinguished career in the Royal Navy.

Nelson’s life and work has been exhaustively researched and evaluated since the day he died.

London auctioneer Charles Miller holds his next Maritime and Scientific Models, Instruments & Art auction on April 25

The sale of maritime antiques at Charles Miller (24% buyer’s premium) in London on November 1 included a number of silver boating trophies from the Royal Naval Club & Royal Albert Yacht Club, Portsmouth – most of them well received by the collecting audience.