Auctions

Duke’s of Dorchester has hired a trio of specialists to grow its auction calendar and attract consignments from outside its immediate catchment area.

A view of coastal Mexico was knocked down at £280,000 at Bonhams’ latest Travel and Exploration sale in Knightsbridge – a record price at auction for British topographical painter Daniel Egerton (1797-1842).

With the centenary of the act that enfranchised female voters aged over 30 very much in the headlines, a collection of First World War uniforms and a photo album sold by C&T Auctioneers (20% buyer’s premium) underlines the role played by women in that conflict.

A coin that a set a record for a British five pound piece features among the hammer highlights for coins and banknotes sold across the year at auction.

A bustling scene of Leicester Square by genre painter Edward Prentis (1797-1854) took £6800 at David Lay (18% buyer’s premium) of Penzance.

When Bill Kime, senior decorative arts specialist at the Waddington’s (20% buyer’s premium) saleroom, was contacted early last year by a couple from British Columbia about selling their collection of Martinware, he jumped at the chance.

More down to earth than the Bentley Speed Sixes and MG TDs of the classic car world, this 1961 GPO van nevertheless was a major draw at Biddle & Webb (20% buyer’s premium) in Birmingham.

Music played its part in the first Dominic Winter sale of the year, with books, scores and other autograph material from another but differently sourced Elgar collection to others offered before by the saleroom.

After more than a decade of holding auctions in west London, Holts Auctioneers is relocating to a new saleroom to the south-east of the capital this March.

A good weight and a good name helped this London 1890 embossed silver punch bowl to double the lower estimate at TW Gaze (18% buyer’s premium).

This painting of a fire in north London drew heated bidding when it went under the hammer at Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood (21% buyer’s premium).

The Zulu War medal awarded to Driver Charles Robson, batman to commanding officer Lieutenant John Chard during the epic defence of Rorke’s Drift, sold for £110,000 at Dix Noonan Webb on March 2.

Billed as a collection, possibly better described as a hoard, the contents of boxes stored in warehouse units were “the magic ingredients for auction goers” according to Dreweatts’ deputy chairman James Nicholson.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

First-edition sets with well-preserved jackets and perhaps a signature or an inscription usually make the really big money where Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy is concerned, but a recent Dublin sale produced something rather unusual.