Auctioneers

The latest sale of Clocks, Watches, & Scientific Instruments held by Bonhams Skinner (25% buyer’s premium) included one of perhaps only 50 surviving Tornek-Rayville TR-900 stainless steel dive watches.

Sotheby’s (25/20/13.9% buyer’s premium plus 1% overhead premium) latest Old Master evening sale in London was the smallest in terms of the number of lots that anyone could remember at one of these flagship summer events.

The headline borrows the title given to an online Christie’s (26/20% buyer’s premium) sale – one that presented more than 80 modern first editions.

Although, thanks in part to Bram Stoker’s Dracula (first published in 1897), bats have acquired a reputation as ‘creatures of the night’ in many cultures they are viewed as symbols of luck or reincarnation.

In the years 1881-82, the Rev William Essery was for many months a passenger on the SS Ceylon.

English and Continental ‘country house’ offerings are rare in the US but not gone forever

Inscribed to her husband and fellow poet, Ted Hughes, the dedication copy of the first and only collection of Sylvia Plath’s poems to be published in her lifetime, 'The Colossus and other Poems', sold for a record £75,000 in a Sotheby’s (25/20/13.9% buyer’s premium) sale.

On November 9-10 Sworders will conduct an auction of objects from the collection of pioneering dealer Jan Ellen Finch (1952-2021) of Finch & Co.

Consignments thin on the ground judging by the latest auctions series in London

During the administration of Rutherford Hayes, who served as the 19th President of the US from 1877-81, the White House commissioned a dinner service from the Haviland factory in Limoges.

In its catalogue notes for the July 22 Scottish Greats: Football, Golf, Fishing and more sale, McTear’s (24% buyer’s premium) was careful to say regarding a football shirt on offer that it could give no guarantee it was exactly as billed.

Sasha dolls were popular presents in the sixties and seventies and still in demand enough at auction today to hit four figures.

Arguably the most eyecatching bidding battle at the latest London Old Master series was for a painting of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

Essex saleroom Sworders will sell a group of works by Angelica Kauffman (1741- 1807) next month.

TimeLine Auctions’ Antiquities sale includes a dozen good examples of Roman glass including this 3rd-5th century unguentarium with zigzag trail decoration.

Percy Thomas Tibbles, born in Hampstead, London, in 1881, was destined to become famous for cutting women in half.

Priced on the cover at nine pence, it was a British copy of a Marvel comic of 1983, one that saw the first appearance of the mighty Thor, that led the bidding at £6300 in the comics section of a July 21-22 sale held by Fieldings (24% buyer’s premium).

Despite the issues of supply affecting the market, odd pockets of success were evident at the latest Old Master sales in London.