Features

Keeping score in the earliest days of the Football League was not as easy as checking the internet.

The FA Cup proved a happy hunting ground for Norman Whiteside in his playing days and at auction many years later the competition was still proving to be a big winner for him.

As with so many other sales schedules for the summer, Graham Budd’s June two-day auction had to be cancelled due to the coronavirus lockdown. However, he has just announced that he will be holding his next on November 9-10 as a live ‘broadcast’ auction (all forms of bidding except for in the room, viewing by timed appointment at the firm’s Enfield premises).

The Hornby train set is 100 years old this year. ATG reports on the sale of a remarkable century-old survivor plus highlights from across the UK regions

A section of maritime antiques offered at Adam Partridge (20% buyer’s premium) in Liverpool included an otherwise pedestrian Spode cup and saucer made c.1910.

The fortnightly Saturday afternoon TV show Whirligig was the first children’s programme to be broadcast live from the BBC studios in Lime Grove, Shepherd’s Bush.

An original Raleigh Chopper bicycle that may never have been ridden has been sold at Derbyshire saleroom Hansons (25% buyer’s premium) for £1250 – more than double top estimate.

Underlining the nostalgic appeal of the 1970s-80s toys that today’s collectors once played with as children, this group of Action Man uniforms estimated at £40-60 sold for £1300 at the Keys (20% buyer’s premium) Toys auction on July 7.

Toys from the Attack Force range are not the earliest of the Airfix models, but they are perhaps the most desirable.

London Underground maps come up relatively regularly at auction – and typically it is the various 1930s states of the classic Harry Beck design that command the really high prices.

It’s admittedly not much to look at and just 2 x 3½in (5 x 8.5cm), but if you are a Star Wars collector this badge on offer estimated at £4000-6000 at East Bristol Auctions on July 24 means a great deal.

Leicestershire saleroom Gildings is offering an extensive single-owner collection of large-scale model locomotives in an auction which will benefit a life-size steam railway.

This Star Wars Kenner Blue Snaggletooth action figure, undented toe version, complete with original weapon, is estimated at £80-120 in the Special Auction Services October 27 Toys for the Collector sale.

First World War ‘trench art’ – objects made by soldiers, prisoners of war and interned civilians from munitions casings – does not get much better than this brass model of a Vickers machine gun.

The market for traditional British and Continental ceramics did not lie idle for three months. As ATG reports, a renewed enthusiasm greeted the first major UK sale since lockdown

This set of 40 Paris porcelain cabinet plates, c.1850, decorated with views of Constantinople, sold for €36,000/£32,730 (estimate €20,000-30,000) at a recent sale held by Dutch firm Oriental Art Auctions (28% buyer’s premium) in Hattem.

The sale of the Müller-Frei collection of paintings and decorative arts held by Koller (25% buyer’s premium) in Zurich last month included two early 18th century Meissen figure groups that outstripped their estimates.

The New Hall China Manufactory holds an important place in the history of English porcelain. Active from 1781-1835, it was effectively a cooperative between several Staffordshire earthenware makers, who acquired the Bristol porcelain patent and financed a factory together, first at Tunstall and then at Shelton New Hall in Hanley.

The Rijksmuseum was in action at the Drouot to carry off a 9½in (24cm) wide porcelain punchbowl from the Ansbach factory.

Bonhams will sell the third tranche of a substantial private collection of Meissen on July 22. It includes a number of Böttger stonewares with this 4in (10cm) head of the Emperor Vitellius, c.1710-13, estimated at £4000-6000.