South-east England

The first printed copy of Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica was published in Strasbourg as early as c.1475 with subsequent versions printed in Vienna (1513), Strasbourg again (1500), Haguenau (1506), Paris (1544) and Antwerp (1550).

Variety was certainly in evidence in a West Sussex sale, where the teenage journal of a young stained-glass maker, two broadside ballads and an illustrated dummy for 'Down with Skool!' all brought much higher than predicted bids.

Offered with an a/f catalogue caveat, this early 20th century marine chronometer, below, quadrupled expectations at Chichester saleroom Henry Adams (20% buyer’s premium).

Newbury’s Special Auction Services is to expand into a double-height saleroom in the new year.

Turbulent as politics are today, they have yet to reach the rumbustious heights of a notorious 1826 by-election in Northumberland, memories of which were revisited at Newcastle auction house Anderson & Garland (20% buyer’s premium).

A late Victorian diamond cluster necklet with an estimated total weight of 14.4cts sold in its original fitted case for £10,500 at Richard Winterton (20% buyer’s premium), Lichfield.

This 21 x 15in (54 x 39cm) watercolour, below, probably depicting the New Julfa quarter of Isfahan, is by the Armenian-Iranian painter Sumbat Kiureghian (1913- 99).

Thousands of items are available to buy from dealers online. Here we pick out one that caught our eye this week.

Two English furniture ‘discoveries’ excelled against modest hopes at auction in mid-September. Top-end London dealers bought both pieces.

Amassed by one of the longest-serving members of the MCC (Marylebone Cricket Club), a group of cricketing lots notched up a number of auction highlights last month.

Peter Dingley (1923-2018), who died last year aged 95, is a name synonymous with the best of modern British craft. David Whiting, author of 'Modern British Potters & Their Studios' (2009), described him as “a remarkable member of the small band of post-war pioneering gallerists who supported British ceramics”.

Emmerdale actor’s love of Ayrton and circle seen at Tetsworth estate sale

A group of five rare bronzes by Joseph Durham (1814- 77) from the Gould collection will be offered at The Canterbury Auction Galleries on November 26-27.

Bellmans in Wisborough Green, West Sussex is to offer two watercolours by Eric Ravilious (1903-1942) as part of a Fine Paintings sale on October 15. Both come from a local private collection.

Dealer Manfred Schotten “grew up skiing in Bavaria, started to play golf, was taken fly-fishing by friends and started noticing sporting antiques and memorabilia. This is when it really started.”

Dealers who give up trading up from shop premises in favour of a unit or units at an antiques centre have differing stories as to why they make that choice.

Estimated at £400-600, a Chinese porcelain vase was bid to £1.3m at an auction in Hampshire last week.

George du Maurier (1834-96) joined the staff at Punch magazine in 1865, drawing two ink cartoons a week until his eyesight deteriorated in 1891. His most common targets were the affected manners of Victorian society and Britain’s growing middle class in particular.

Pitched at £500-800, this grand sonnerie carriage clock came with little information for bidders at Jacobs & Hunt’s (22% buyer’s premium) sale in Liss other than plentiful illustrations and the name C Marcks & Co, Bombay and Poona engraved to the silvered dial.

Boosted by the ‘wrong therefore rare’ factor – so important in the world of collectables – a 1977 British quad film poster for the first Star Wars film took top billing in a 250-lot specialist sale at Ewbank’s (24% buyer’s premium).