Pick of the Week

The Mickey and Minnie Mouse motorcycle made by Tippco, c.1932, is the most desirable of all the German tinplate clockwork toys from the immediate pre-war period.

In the latter half of the 19th century, French society stood at the crossroads of progress.

The first mention of plans for a Wedgwood earthenware chess set occurs in a bill from a 30-year-old John Flaxman dated March 8, 1785.

A Regency table that probably featured in George Bullock’s ‘Finished Stock’ dispersal of 1819 sold for £80,000 (plus 26.5% buyer’s premium) at Sloane Street Auctions just over two centuries later.

A rare silver multi-functional gentleman’s tool by the celebrated firm Holtzapffel & Co proved to be the stand-out lot at Flints' latest sale.

Described as “a remarkable convergence of Victorian social history and 20th century musical heritage”, a gelatin silver print of the Wiltshire thatcher Lot Long sold for £16,000 (plus 20% buyer’s premium) at Denhams in Warnham, West Sussex on February 25.

French inventor Charles-Émile Reynaud (1844-1918) was responsible for the first projected animated films.

This Meissen plate painted with a view of Delft was among the contents of Lamb Close House sold by Mellors & Kirk in Nottingham on February 11.

Visitors to London at the end of the 17th century needed to take care: banditts, adamtilers and fencing-cullies were out looking to prey on unwitting buzzards, fat culls and fuddlecaps.

As with any market, the Matchbox collecting scene has ups and downs but recent results suggest significant market strength right now.

Cotswolds dealer Paul Shutler has sold a pair of EW Godwin-designed andirons to the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston.

An Adelie penguin egg collected by Herbert Ponting (1871-1935) on the ill-fated Terra Nova expedition came for sale in Nantwich on January 8.

An ‘exceptional and newly discovered’ Mamluk manuscript copy of an Arabic text on hippiatry (equine medicine) was the highlight of Lyon & Turnbull’s latest Islamic and Indian art sale in London.

So-called ‘talc pictures’ or ‘metamorphoses’ were fashionable amusements in European courts in the second half of the 17th century.

While the market for post-war Whitefriars has waxed and waned in the past three decades, in 2025 several very active collectors have driven saleroom prices forward once again. It has been a strong year for the Geoffrey Baxter Textured range in particular.

While Alan Turing has for some time now quite rightly received credit for his work at Bletchley Park during the Second World War, the contributions of the women who worked there can still be overlooked.

The sale of Chinese and other Asian Works of Art at Semley Auctioneers in Shaftesbury, Dorset, included the largest known group of works by the artist Mrs H Clark.

Phillips set a new auction record for Adolf Loos (1870-1933) when a dwarf longcase clock, a prime example of his work, drew strong competition on November 4.

Thomas Field Gibson (1803-89) was a man of many talents and interests.