Auction Reports

The only known bass drumhead featuring John Bonham’s personal symbol – the interlocking rings that became his mark after Led Zeppelin’s fourth album – hammered at $70,000 (£53,000) at Heritage (25% buyer’s premium) in Dallas.

A suitably psychedelic 1967 poster of Bob Dylan, designed by Martin Sharp, fetched £900 at the James & Sons (25% buyer’s premium inc VAT) auction in Fakenham on January 15.

Now famous for a career of filling stadiums as one of the biggest and most successful bands in the world, Pink Floyd played more humble venues back in the day.

“A Holy Grail moment for collectors worldwide” was the promise from Merseyside auction house Omega (29/35% buyer’s premium inc VAT) when a scarce picture sleeve came for sale.

“This has been the biggest single cataloguing job of my career - an extraordinary experience,” said John Silke, vinyl specialist of Surrey saleroom Ewbank’s (25% buyer’s premium).

As part of a Fine Art auction in Surrey on June 25, Catherine Southon is selling a collection of British art exhibition posters from the estate of Professor Zacron (Robert Drew), the maverick artist best known for the album cover of Led Zeppelin III.

The first clockwork robot with a walking action appeared at Hartleys (20% buyer’s premium) in Ilkley, West Yorkshire, on April 5.

This skeleton of an extinct cave bear (Ursus spelaeus) sold for £17,000 in Tennants’ (24% buyer’s premium) Natural History and Taxidermy Sale.

Talk of ‘mammoth’ sales usually entails a sizeable selection of lots.

A lot offering a Shanghai Municipal Jubilee Medal, November 17, 1893, proved so appealing that it sold at five times the top estimate.

Like many English joiners of his time, not a great deal is known about the private life of Gerrit Jensen.

Like Toulouse Lautrec, Ramon Casas y Carbo (1866-1932) was not only an avant-garde artist but a master poster maker and graphic designer.

The Barbarians jersey worn by JPR Williams (1949-2024) in one of rugby union’s most famous matches sold at Rogers Jones (22% buyer’s premium) for £27,500 on April 10.

One-off football ‘super cup’ style ties are nothing new, as a very much in demand programme offered at Telford saleroom Mullock Jones (20.5% buyer’s premium) demonstrated.

Some ‘prisoner of war’ productions are now thought to have been made by skilled craftsmen

It is perhaps fitting that the shirt belonging to a player who scored two goals successively in the quarter, semi final and final of the 1975 FA Cup would double its top estimate at Stacey’s (25% buyer’s premium) on April 28.

Vanessa Bell submitted two designs for the 1934 Modern Art for the Table exhibition at Harrods.

The fierce football rivalry between the Sky Blues and Red Devils led to a competition not on the pitch but on the rostrum thanks to the Graham Budd (24% buyer’s premium) two-day sale dubbed An Auction of Two Halves.

Terence Cuneo’s 'Giants Refreshed' poster for the LNER showing Pacific steam locomotives 'In the Doncaster Locomotive Works' is a well-known work.

While few will welcome the news that Bonhams – the last of the major auction houses to hold regular sales Japanese works of art in London – is moving its department to Paris (ATG No 2690), there will be opportunities for UK salerooms that continue to plough this selective but occasionally fruitful furrow.