UK

A copy of JRR Tolkien’s 'The Hobbit' offered in a recent Surrey sale was a first-impression one of 1937, but essentially defined by its truly sad and defective condition.

Interest from bidders in more than 40 countries competed for what Stroud Auctions (18% buyer’s premium plus VAT) called a “world-class private collection of over 4000 military badges”.

The Crimea medal awarded to one of only two officers taken prisoner by the Russians during the calamitous Charge of the Light Brigade in 1854 sold for £14,000 at London saleroom Dix Noonan Webb (25% buyer’s premium).

Limited-edition work showing Salford artist’s famous football scene nets a new high

Three works selling at regional sales below £3500, including a print of 'Lowry Walking on Swinton Moss' by Harold Riley.

With the UK auction calendar yet to undergo significant changes and cancellations due to the coronavirus outbreak, many sales took place last week. Here are three highlights from around the country.

Among the rarest of all Subbuteo games invented and manufactured by Peter Adolph in Tunbridge Wells are those without a sporting theme.

Dealer’s London exhibition showcases the ‘exceptional’ but forgotten work of Paul Drury.

This pair of 19th century continental silver-gilt figure groups is among the objects from a Rothschild collection to be sold by Woolley & Wallis later this year.

The first specialist sale of dolls and dolls’ houses at Lacy Scott & Knight (20% buyer’s premium) of Bury St Edmunds was based mainly around a single collection.

Online auction marketplace thesaleroom.com (owned by ATG parent Auction Technology Group) made the following announcement to reassure auction houses that internet bidding will continue uninterrupted:

Bosleys has launched a new format for its auctions, including a move from Marlow to Staffordshire.

The Church of England was Geoffrey Garner’s vocation in life – collecting military badges his hobby

The best-seller lists these days will always include a good number of explosive memoirs written by special forces veterans and their heroic stories usually also mean high interest at auction.

ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from March 11-31, 2020.

Before British female nurses could even help with the wounded they faced a battle to be accepted, as the story behind a medal winner reveals.

“Something awful. Never witnessed anything like it before. After a bombardment of a week the Germans mounted their own trenches and the infantry reckon that every German had a machine gun…”

From relatively modest beginnings, specialist design sales have become mainstream money-spinners at provincial auctions.

It was scenes of pleasure boats at Lytham St Anne’s on the Lancashire coast like the one shown below that Lowry’s mother supposedly favoured over her son’s darker industrial scenes.