Features

London auctioneer Charles Miller holds his next Maritime and Scientific Models, Instruments & Art auction on April 25

Thomas Edison’s electric pen might not have flourished as planned for the purpose of duplicating documents but if you have a tattoo you can be thankful.

Early stereoscopic images featured in the collection of a dealer curious about how technology transformed life in Victorian times

The Winter Maritime Sale at Eldreds on February 28-March 1 includes an 18th century Islamic brass quadrant made in the Maghreb region of north-west Africa.

Steam engine made in France and later installed in Sussex museum graced same exhibition as the Eiffel Tower

This instrument dates from the founding days of one of the world’s most significant aerospace manufacturers: Short Brothers

Musical automata were the top hits at Tennants’ (22% buyer’s premium) auction of scientific and musical instruments and cameras.

The Paris firm of Roullet & Decamps was famous for automata, walking and moving dolls and toys.

The French anatomist and naturalist Louis Thomas Jérôme Auzoux (1797-1880) set up a workshop making very accurate human and veterinary anatomical models.

Dreweatts in Newbury has for sale this fine Victorian ‘weather station’ with a full provenance and a portrait of its former owner.

Georg Merz and Joseph Mahler took over the Utzschneider & Fraunhofer company in 1839.

The slide rule shown here belonged to Dhunjeebhoy Rustomjee, who came from a fine line of Indian master ship builders in ancestry.

The prototype B1 Vulcan first flew in 1952 and it is a sign of the design’s longevity and durability that the last of these bombers was taken out of service only in 1984.

Produced six years after the much more common 1847 dated Gothic Crown of which 8000 were made, the 1853 Gothic Crown was struck only in a very limited number.

Struck c.1500 in Lisbon from Guinean gold provided by the explorations of Vasco da Gama, the 10 cruzados piece or Portugués do ouro of Manuel I (1495-1521) is a coin synonymous with the Age of Discovery.

To one side of this gold aureus struck in Rome in 180-83 is a sensually draped portrait of the goddess Venus.

The unexpected but very welcome increase in demand that the market experienced amid Covid lockdowns continued in 2022 as restrictions eased – and auction houses are optimistic about another strong performance this year

Henry III (1216-72) issued his ‘gold penny’ for probably less than a year from August 16, 1357.

Instituted by Maria Dickin, the founder of the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals (PDSA), in 1943, the Dickin Medal has been awarded on 71 occasions – 32 of them going to pigeons, 34 to dogs, four to horses and one to a cat.

The corpus of Anglo-Saxon coins lists only 20 coins for the Kentish king Eadberht.