Pick of the Week

It was, said the catalogue, “a once in a lifetime opportunity to acquire a top end sign in such remarkable condition”.

A ‘Russian’ tunic from Chanel’s famed Spring 1922 collection sold for €100,000 (£86,000) in Paris – a record for her early work.

An elaborate 17th century burr walnut coffre-fort (or strongbox) has been sold by Alexander George Antiques.

This pair of trousers, sold for £7500 in Essex on November 9, was thought to have been worn by the 17th century court dwarf Sir Jeffrey Hudson (1619-82).

Militaria related to the SAS has never been short of eager collectors wanting to splash out for items connected with the British special forces unit.

In colonial Mexico cacao beans and vanilla pods assumed a similar status to tea leaves in England.

Depictions of north Africa and the Middle East became commonplace in Western art as the Orientalist art movement reached its height in the 19th century.

HMS Foudroyant, which served as Nelson’s flagship in the Mediterranean Squadron, had been touring English seaside resorts as an attraction when it was wrecked off Blackpool Sands on June 16, 1897.

The first civilian Victoria Cross of just five to be awarded has sold for an auction record hammer price of £750,000 at London saleroom Noonans.

Florentine pietra dura animal panels from home of art dealer Sir Jack Mervyn Frank Baer take six-figure sum.

This ‘St George and the Dragon’ Pilkington’s Royal Lancastrian plaster panel came for sale at Gildings in Market Harborough by descent from Abraham Lomax.

A lot offering Action Man outfits and accessories from the flock hair period c.1970 sold for 100 times the low estimate at a Devon saleroom thanks to a considerable rarity it contained.

A two-volume manuscript used to determine swan ownership in East Anglia from the 16th to the 19th century was sold by Sworders for a remarkable £54,000 (plus 25% buyer’s premium).

A previously unknown sketchbook of watercolours and drawings relating to the California Gold Rush took £16,000 (plus 25% buyer’s premium) at Chiswick Auctions.

A recent sale at Aldridges of Bath (20% buyer’s premium) included a fine George IV period mahogany extending dining table.

The murder of William Weare in the Hertfordshire village of Radlett in 1823 has been called the first trial by newspaper.

He may have been considered ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know’ but items connected to Lord Byron (1788-1824) make for very welcome auction consignments.

Although he initially specialised in small furnishing objects and statuettes, the Parisian bronzier Victor Paillard (1805-86) began exhibiting with more elaborate creations in the 1840s.

Despite appearing in a 1930s photograph held in the MAK Museum, Vienna, this wood carving of Adam and Eve seems to have hitherto eluded scholars of the German woodcarver Leonhard Kern (1588-1662).

Abraham Barachin became the last silversmith to use the Hull town mark of three ducal coronets.