Auctions

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.

Published jointly by Kellogg & Comstock of New York and D Needham of Buffalo, c.1849-50, the rare and amusing hand coloured lithograph shown below is titled The Independent Gold Hunter on His Way to California: I Neither Borrow nor Lend.

Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood of Exeter plans to hold its first-ever 20th century and contemporary art and design sale later this month.

Upholstered Victorian armchairs not being the most in-demand of auction lots at present, the £100-150 estimate of a pair offered at Greenslade Taylor Hunt (19.5% buyer’s premium) did not seem overly pessimistic.

Marked CRA and dated 1895, a set of three silver spoons offered at auction represent a key point in the career of one of the giants of the Arts & Crafts movement, Charles Robert Ashbee (1863-1942).

'Steal me not but let me jog; for I am Mrs Gwynn’s Dog.' For lovers of antique dog collars, collecting examples engraved with an amusing inscription such as this one, or a quirky owner’s name, is all part of the fun.

Three years since he launched his Suffolk auction house Bishop & Miller, managing director Oliver Miller is fine-tuning his sales line-up.

Almost a quarter of a century since ATG’s first overview of the numismatic market, ATG reviews the comings and goings of 2017

As celebrations get under way to mark the centenary of women gaining the right to vote (or over-30s at least), the Modern British art market is showing a growing appetite for 20th century female artists.

A 19th century painted print of a Maori took top honours at Heliers Auction (18% buyer’s premium) in Blackburn, Lancashire.

ATG’s selection of auction lots bought by internet bidders on thesaleroom.com from the period February 1-7, 2018. This includes both the highest prices over estimate and the top prices paid online.

Designed by Bodil Kjaer, this 1960s oak, palisander and steel ‘executive desk’ offered at Chiswick Auctions (23% buyer’s premium) is a classic example of the huge influence of Scandinavian architects on Western post-war design.

Michael Rothenstein’s illustration of Lennie Small and George Millon, the Californian migrant workers whose story is told in John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, formed both the jacket illustration and the frontispiece (shown below) to the 1927, first UK edition.

It is a year now since Jim Spencer joined Derbyshire saleroom Hansons (20% buyer’s premium), tasked with building up the book sections of their sales.