Collectables

What is considered the first coin made in platinum was among the highlights of the second tranche of British coins from the so-called Traveller collection.

Items associated with the White Star Line, the British shipping company that built its global brand on unmatched passenger comfort, continue to thrive at auction.

Motor Launch 397 was one of about 500 of these 37-ton boats built by Elco during the First World War and was heavily involved with the 1918 raids on the German-held ports of Ostend and Zeebrugge.

A mirror for an East End brewery set a new record at £33,000 as the breweriana collecting market matures

Unusual models brings strong demand as the RAF Museum sold off items it viewed as no longer needed

A four-page letter written by Edward ‘Bill’ Wilson to a friend during the early days of the doomed British Antarctic Expedition sold for £19,000 at Fieldings (26% buyer’s premium) in Stourbridge.

If The Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers are to your liking, a large single-owner collection of military medals comprising nearly 100 lots dedicated to the regiment offered in Somerset on May 28 would have caught your eye.

Johannes Blaeu’s 'Atlas maior, sive Cosmographia…' is considered the finest collection of maps ever produced.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish books and works on paper auctions

Bidders spot copy of 1631 Barker bible that contains jaw-dropping mistakes missed in proof-reading

“The Russians opened fire on our right, on our left, and then in front...

Guided at £800-1200, a 10in (26cm) medieval ‘rotating’ or ‘register’ bookmark sold at £7000 at Semley Auctioneers (22% buyer’s premium) in Shaftesbury, Dorset on May 16.

Personal stories grab the attention of militaria collectors, transforming dry histories of dates and names, facts and figures into real-life flesh and blood tales.

The Spink (20% buyer’s premium) sale on April 23 that included the Rorke’s Drift medal awarded to ‘Ammunition Smith’ (see News, ATG No 2742) also featured several other notable lots.

During the First World War aviators of the Royal Flying Corps suffered from the cold over the Western Front. A solution was the ’fug boot’.

Richard Winterton (22% buyer’s premium) offered what was described simply as a “post Second World War” leather flying helmet with goggles and gas mask on May 21 in Tamworth.

Auction lots for a while now have demonstrated a factor which may be termed a ‘Malta premium’.

Pelé’s Brazil 1958 match-worn World Cup final shirt is up for auction with an estimate ‘in excess of $6m’.

Selection of advertising art underlines the extraordinary demand in Germany

Both the first and the first trade editions of A Room of One’s Own (1929) were among a collection of eight Virginia Woolf lots included in the April 16 Rare Books, Autographs, & Maps auction at Doyle (28% buyer’s premium) in New York.