Germany

A seemingly never-ending bidding match ensued at Cortrie in Hamburg on May 9 for a tourbillon-watch by the German watchmaker Richard Miklosch (1939-2014) .

With Sixties and Seventies style again part of the collecting zeitgeist, vintage Kutchinsky pieces are now common currency for the best of the UK’s antique and vintage jewellery dealers and auction houses. However, it also pays to look further afield.

Jodocus Hondius’ additions for his edition of Gerhard Mercator’s pioneering 'Atlas Sive Cosmographicae Meditationes de Fabrica Mundi et Fabricati Figura' made the work one of the most accomplished collections of maps from the early 17th century.

One of two translated versions that appeared almost simultaneously emerges in German saleroom

The sales at Stargardt (20% buyer’s premium) in Berlin are an important rendezvous for autograph dealers and collectors.

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.

Vases and other vessels employing the Primavera technique belong to the rarest types of glass produced in Murano.

While many people have a decided aversion to pigeons, this did not apply to the bidders at Kiefer (25% buyer’s premium) in Pforzheim, Germany.

There was plenty of interest at a sale held by Van Ham (27% buyer’s premium) in Cologne for a painting of a Medieval scene with jousting tournament.

Three Old Master paintings being sold by Van Ham on May 22 in Cologne have a direct connection to the collection of Augustus the Strong.

With only one key, the Diskret, which was offered at a recent sale at Auction Team Breker (21.8% buyer’s premium), did not conform to the conventional layout of a typewriter.

In 1869, under the terms of the will of John Davy, brother of the celebrated chemist Humphry Davy, the Davy Medal was established in his name.

The Romanian artist Arthur Segal spent much of his career in Germany among the avant garde.

Augustus the Strong, the Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, was known as a monumental collector.

Thuringian auction house enjoys more success with collection of local industrialist

Founded in 1751 at the behest of the Prussian king Frederick the Great, ‘The Royal Prussian Asiatic Company in Emden to Canton and China’ aimed to profit from the trade between Europe and China.

The Flemish designer Henry van de Velde excelled in many fields, working as a painter and architect, before he devoted himself to creating a multitude of designs, from cutlery to furniture, from wallpaper to porcelain.

Collectors with a keen eye for rarities saw to it that unusual pieces of Märklin offered by Antico Mondo (21.5% buyer’s premium) in Bornheim went for multiples of their estimates.

The Mickey and Minnie Mouse motorcycle made by Tippco, c.1932, is the most desirable of all the German tinplate clockwork toys from the immediate pre-war period.