Features

A selection of stand-out watch lots coming up at sales around the UK

Based in workshops near the Place des Bergues in Geneva in the 1850s-60s, the jeweller Auguste Dutertre (1798-1866) found a niche making so-called ‘bijoux à montres’ - watch movements concealed in notebooks, powder-boxes or, as here, a pair of lorgnettes.

A gold and enamel Dent pocket watch given by Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, to the Italian opera singer Giuseppina Grassini surfaced for sale at an auction in Austria

Piaget launched its Polo wristwatch model in 1979.

Tommy nearly made the supreme sacrifice to support the Allied cause in the Second World War.

An atypical entry to the March 4-9 sale at the Harwich antiquities specialist TimeLine is this gold medal struck in Philadelphia following the sinking of American steamship Casper, on December 23, 1928.

Two excellent examples of the highest British awards for courage are coming up in the same London auction on March 11.

A British airborne forces smock offered in the C&T (22% buyer’s premium) February 12-13 auction told its own tale thanks to a remarkable discovery concealed within.

Lieutenant General John Burgoyne (1722-92) was put in command of the British forces in Canada in 1777 after outlining the shortcomings of his own commanding officer.

Although much less well known than many ‘last stands’, medals for the Wilson’s Patrol in 1893 are prized by collectors

Estimated at £200-300 but sold for £4200 at Charterhouse (25% buyer’s premium) in Sherborne, Dorset, were two design books from the Royal Doulton workshop floor.

Sir Bruno Welby (b.1928), a member of both the English Ceramic Circle and the French Porcelain Society, has bought European porcelain since the 1950s.

The Sir Bruno Welby collection (see main story in this edition) sold at Woolley & Wallis shone the spotlight on two familiar names from the early English porcelain literature: Jefferyes Hamett O’Neale (1719/20-97) and Fidelle Duvivier (1740-after 1796).

Susan Pickett, a retired community nurse from Cornwall, is vice-chairman of The Daniel Ceramic Circle. Her own collection of items made by the H&R Daniel manufactory began when she was looking for a plate to fit a space on a dresser. One piece soon became three, which later became more than 200.

Total sales across London coins and medals auctions fell £10m in 2024. So, are the first cracks appearing in a market that was riding high in Covid? As always, the devil is in the detail.

A look at some of the numismatic lots that caused a stir in 2024, starting off with a scarce example of Civil War coinage

Sale of Kunstkammer items amassed by the founder of Mothercare will bring English and Continental silver and furniture in the princely tradition to the rostrum

To say that retired police officer Brab Hallowes has a passion for collecting would be something of an understatement.

The Leicester engineer Robert Crawford Johnson (1882-1937) registered the design for the cube teapot in 1916.

The silver sale at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury on February 4-5 includes this Indian silver inkstand by Hamilton & Co.