Collectables

The binding of a copy of 'Vocabularis rerum' of Wenceslaus Brack sold in a recent West Sussex sale was a 19th century one and now broken, but this was in its time a very popular and much reprinted work.

Though the splendid but incomplete copy of Jakob Christoph Trew’s 'Hortus nitidissims… floribus' previewed in ATG No 2018 got close to the high estimate in selling at £85,000 as part of the opening, natural history section of a recent London sale, a number of other top lots failed to find buyers.

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions.

Part toy, part biscuit tin, the crossover appeal of a 1929 Huntley & Palmers product helped it to star at Hansons’ (20% buyer’s premium) five-day 2100-lot marathon antiques and collectors sale.

Cutting up examples for new artworks can be controversial – but here is a case for the defence

Losses narrowed for stamps, coins and medals business Stanley Gibbons in the six months to September 30.

Madeleine Neave, curator of The Antique Breadboard Museum, has published a book describing her extensive collection of boards, butter knives and butter churners.

Although Charles Dickens is often credited with creating the ‘modern’ Christmas, some of the recognition should go to John Leech.

Less often seen than Suffragette propaganda and considerably less PC these days, a brass and enamel fob badge for the National League for Opposing Woman had its international admirers at Ipswich auction house Lockdales (19.5% buyer’s premium).

A 1637 first edition of 'New English Canaan…' was one of the homegrown highlights of a sale held by Christie’s New York (25/20/13.5% buyer’s premium).

Containing numerous diagrams, a manuscript manual on 18th century shipbuilding techniques and practices sold for £3600 in a recent sale.

The height of fashion nearly three centuries ago, this 18th century doll’s dress caught the eye at C&T’s (20% buyer’s premium) specialist sale in Tunbridge Wells.

Possibly dating from the late 16th or early 17th century, a Spanish text manuscript version of Andrea Alciato’s 1531 'Emblemata', the first and most frequently reprinted emblem book, sold for $9000 (£7030) at Swann (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) in New York.

Personal devotional prayer books, known as a Book of Hours, were popular among the wealthy and powerful in late medieval Europe. Illuminated with miniature paintings depicting the life of Christ, the Virgin Mary and saints, they were sometimes personalised for the patrons who commissioned them.

Extinct for 65 million years, dinosaurs continue to rule the world of children visiting the National History Museum, of multi-million dollar movie makers – and of bidders at the Evolution Sales at Summers Place Auctions (25% buyer’s premium).

Invented in the 19th century but outmoded by word processors then computers, typewriters are now having a resurgence in the collecting world.

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions.

Book dealer John Lawson joined EM Lawson & Co, the firm that his father had started at Sutton Coldfield in 1921, when he was demobbed from national service in the RAF in 1952.