North America

An historic piece of Georgian silver – the ‘pair’ to the famed Walpole ‘seal salver’ in the Victoria & Albert Museum – is being offered for sale following its recent rediscovery in New York.

Collector Robert A Ellison was obsessively acquisitive.

The legend of author Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) is forever linked with sport fishing.

Two years after a Wiltshire auction house set a record for Titanic memorabilia with “the watch recovered from the body of John Jacob Astor”, another timekeeper making precisely the same claim is coming to market.

Magic books library reflects obsession of collector who prized exceptionally clean examples

An original Georg Dionysius Ehret illustration of a magnolia blossom hammered for $330,000 (£242,000) at Arader Galleries (20% buyer’s premium) on February 7 in New York.

A newly discovered prime period untitled work by Indian Modernist Akbar Padamsee (1928-2020) established a new house record for Roland Auctions in Glen Cove, New York, on March 28.

Generating plenty of competition at Bonhams Skinner (28% buyer’s premium) was this lot of three pieces of Elkington & Co silver plate.

Lacklustre pre-sale activity leaves Canadian auction house concerned but all 17 lots sell successfully

AH Wilkens (22% buyer’s premium) worded the lot notes carefully.

Two 20th century posters in quite different genres set records at auction in early March.

Though leeches do remain in the pharmacopeia, they’re no longer stored in the ceramic jars and urns common to pharmacies of the 18th and 19th century.

The first mention of plans for a Wedgwood earthenware chess set occurs in a bill from a 30-year-old John Flaxman dated March 8, 1785.

If the period from the 19th to early 20th century was the ‘golden age’ for carriage clocks, it was equally a superb age for pocket watches

Samuel FB Morse (1791-1872) is today best known for his contributions to the creation of the single-wire telegraph system and the co-creator of the Morse code.

High quality sporting cups for Cowes Week yachting and Indian horse racing sell to American bidders

A hitherto unknown c.1902 lithographic poster for Buffalo Bill’s famed Wild West show hammered for $40,000 (£29,510) at Morphy Auctions (23% buyer’s premium) in Las Vegas.

Witherell (25/26% buyer’s premium) in Sacramento, California, posted healthy results for two markedly different lots of British origin: a scarce sporting cartridge advertising display and a silver epergne.