Latest News Articles by Tom Derbyshire
Gramophone needle tins up at auction show the appeal of niche collecting
16 April 2018By the law of averages, there must be a collector out there for just about any antique. So while gramophone collecting is not that unusual, gramophone needle tins definitely push into the ‘niche’ category.
Badges of distinction
16 April 2018Military badges offered at Bosleys provided a good snapshot of a niche collecting area.
Praise for inglorious SAS mission in the Falklands War
16 April 2018A gripping story which, until recently, has remained shrouded in mystery, provides the backdrop for an intriguing test of the market for SAS medals.
‘I should be dead now – it was a decent shot’
16 April 2018A veteran of the Afghanistan war, a sniper who fought on for 90 minutes after being shot in the neck, is selling his medals in a London auction as he returns to civilian life.
Second World War Leitz lens clearly a £70 bargain
16 April 2018Bought recently for just £70 in a job lot, this German military-issue Leitz lens below sold for £5500 in Special Auction Services (17.5 buyer’s premium) Photographica sale on March 13. The Hektor 13.5cm f/4.5 lens, offered with an estimate of £4000-6000, sold to the European trade.
‘The largest collection of its type on the market in memory’
16 April 2018Prof Antony Charles Thomas (1928- 2016) may have been a “towering figure in British academic archaeology during the second half of the 20th century” but another area of interest is betrayed by his Who’s Who entry.
More faces lined up for Olympia
16 April 2018A charity which has sponsored an armourer, a gunmaker and many other metalworkers is the very appropriate cause being supported by The Antique Arms Fair at Olympia.
The last samurai are caught on camera
16 April 2018The man in the photo clad in armour has the proud but sad and wistful gaze of someone who knows that while he is young in age, he is also part of the old guard. He comes from a disappearing world.
Roger Fenton’s pioneering war photography
16 April 2018According to Chris Albury at Cirencester auctioneer Dominic Winter, an “an absolutely A1 example” of Roger Fenton’s (1819-69) famous photo The Valley of the Shadow of Death would make “£50,000-plus at auction, easy peasy”.
The SAS – from the man who designed the badge
16 April 2018Even in the hugely popular world of SAS medal collecting, where extraordinary deeds and great stories are taken as read, every now and again a consignment will come along with that ‘wow’ factor.
Huge group of photos at auction reflects 19th century collecting craze of the carte de visite
12 April 2018Parents will now be shelling out hundreds of pounds as kids fill up football World Cup sticker albums and negotiate playground swaps in a now time-honoured fashion. Back in the mid-19th century the photo collecting craze was all about the carte de visite, as a May 3 auction underlines.
Red Bed eulogised by Nancy Mitford from Faringdon House up for auction
11 April 2018Nancy Mitford was so enamoured with a particular bed that she wrote about it lovingly in the 1950s.
Movers and shakers: latest arts and antiques appointments
10 April 2018A look at the latest moves in the trade.
John Ward studio pottery trio to set a market test at Chiswick Auctions
09 April 2018When a piece of Hans Coper stoneware made an astonishing £305,000 hammer price from an online bid recently it posed a classic ‘state of the market’ question.
Buy a dinosaur skeleton and name a new species after yourself
06 April 2018The sale of a skeleton of a newly discovered species of carnivorous dinosaur to be sold by Aguttes auction house in Paris this June offers the opportunity to name it after the buyer.
Pete Townshend guitar smashed at end of The Who concert now on offer at US auction
04 April 2018High at the top of any list of seminal moments in rock history will be Pete Townshend’s penchant for often destroying guitars at the end of a gig with The Who.
Huge Heathrow murals by former RAF pilot come to auction after Terminal One revamp
03 April 2018A series of enamel murals by a Polish artist once imprisoned in a Russian gulag who later trained as an RAF Spitfire pilot are coming to auction after the revamp of Heathrow Terminal One.
Tri-ang sell-out auction strikes a blow for the traditional toy market beyond Star Wars and Lego
30 March 2018Despite Lego and Star Wars hogging the headlines when it comes to high prices paid out recently by toy collectors, the ‘old school’ has struck back to land a blow for more venerable brands.
Olympia antiques arms fair reloads for its second edition
13 March 2018The organisers of the inaugural Antique Arms Fair at Olympia London last September hope to build on the positive feedback from that event with the second one coming up in April.
Suffragettes in sashes replace snakes and ladders for board game up at auction
13 March 2018The suffragette memorabilia collecting market throws up some pretty strange items at times but few can be more unusual than the board game Pank-a-Squith.