Berkshire

Full array sells for £26,000 while single lot hammers at £6500 as enthusiasts compete in salerooms

End of year highlights included specialist collection amassed by couple who were both renowned experts

A cornerstone in any early football library is 'Association Football & The Men Who Made It', the history of the modern game in its first half-a-century as written by Alfred Gibson and William Pickford and published by Caxton in 1905.

Unless you are a golfer, the name Harry Vardon is probably not a familiar one.

When Liverpool FC played their first-ever Football League fixture in the second division in September 1893 the left-back was a Scot called Duncan McLean (1868-1941).

Although born in the La Croix-Rousse district of Lyon, Antoine François Jean Claudet (1797-1867) is best known for his contribution to the history of British photography.

Pulling out a suitcase from under a bed during a probate valuation, Dawsons’ valuer could scarcely have guessed what they would find hidden inside.

A pale blue and white striped garment offered at Martin & Pole’s (22% buyer’s premium) General Auction on August 7 was simply described as an “antique silk dress, appears in a photograph worn by Esther Palmer in around 1925”.

The Science, Medicine & Early Technology auction at Flints (25% buyer’s premium) in Thatcham, Berkshire on May 1 was led by a complete seven-volume set of The Mineral Conchology of Great Britain by James Sowerby (1757-1822).

This rare 1880s Jean Roullet ‘Le Berger Watteau’ shepherdess with lamb automaton starred when the second part of one of the largest doll collections on offer in recent times went under the hammer.

This aristocratic survivor from the ‘brass and glass’ era of microscope making, a version of Powell & Lealand’s famous ‘No 1’ compound monocular and binocular microscope, is dated 1898.