Features

This unassuming Grana military issue c.1945 shown below forms part of the so-called Dirty Dozen wristwatches made by 12 Swiss manufacturers for the British army.

John Benjamin began his career as a 17-year-old assistant working at Cameo Corner, the Bloomsbury antique jewellery shop founded by Moshe Oved in 1914. “In those far-off days of the early 1970s goods were abundant and prices infinitely affordable. Museum Street was the ideal location for a keen young man to learn all about the antique jewellery business and I absorbed it like a sponge.”

Some of the most striking 19th-20th century jewellery can often be found in design sales.

A sale at Rago Auctions (25% buyer’s premium) in its New Jersey rooms offered potential buyers the Andrew Furer and Elle Douglas collection: 27 lots of Martinware (mostly composed of the potters’ iconic Wally Bird creations).

A large selection of around 250 lots of Martin Brothers wares will be offered in the next British Art Pottery sale at Woolley & Wallis on November 27.

‘Dream’ Martinware cache from family of factory patron surfaces for sale in Berkshire

The modern market for Martin Brothers pottery has been defined by key exhibitions and the sales of important collections. Here is ATG's pick of five events in the last 50 years.

‘Highly unusual’ is how the Duke’s (25% buyer’s premium) cataloguer described a Second World War medal group ahead of its sale in Dorchester on August 22 for £420, just over top estimate.

Venerable London rare book dealership Bernard Quaritch, established in 1847, has recently moved from Mayfair to Holborn. Here ATG talks to two members of the firm, Andrea Mazzocchi and Donovan Rees, about its new location and some wider trends in the book trade

Pictured below is one of the 26 views, after Coke Smyth, that form a first edition copy of John Frederick Lewis’ 'Illustrations of Constantinople, Made During a Residence in that City &c., in the Years 1835-6'.

Just imagine: you have been through the horrors of the Battle of Waterloo in a regiment which suffered 217 casualties out of 396, and were wounded yourself, and then your career is ended by… a wheelbarrow.

American naval expertise and gallantry came as a big shock to the British, who had become used to the Royal Navy ruling the waves.

A white-metal regimental badge estimated at £50-100 sold for £4800 at Lindsay Burns (20% buyer’s premium) in Perth, Scotland, on September 3. Why? It probably hailed from the time and place of the American War of Independence (1775-83).

The great appeal of an otherwise typical early 19th century longcase offered for sale on September 12 by Malvern auctioneer Philip Serrell was its painted dial.

Estimated at £10,000-15,000 in a Forum Auctions sale of November 21 is a French indenture agreement of 1421 with a certain added English appeal.

Coming up for sale at Swann Galleries in New York on December 10 is an original, initialled ink and wash drawing by EH Shepard for a lesser-known work by Kenneth Grahame, Bertie’s Escapade, that was published by Lippincott in the US in 1949.

From November 26-28 Christie’s Paris will disperse part of the family library of the Comtesse Martine de Béhague (1869-1939) and Hubert de Ganay (1888-1974).

A Great War bronze memorial plaque – the ‘Death Penny’ – awarded to Violet Porter, Women’s Royal Air Force, is estimated at £4000- 5000 in the Spink Orders, Medals and Decorations auction in London on November 27-28.

This felt bicorne hat is of a type worn by all ranks of the British heavy cavalry and most light cavalry officers until replaced in 1812 by crested helmets and shakos.

This newly discovered ledger, dated August 18, 1660, to March 16, 1661, was kept in person by Edward Backwell while acting as paymaster to both the Excise and the House of Commons. It carries an estimate of £20,000-40,000 at Bonhams’ Fine Books and Manuscripts sale in Knightsbridge on December 4.