Collectables

British and Irish book auctions: April 16-27, 2019

First published in 1936, The Negro Travellers’ Green Book was a once indispensable guide for African-Americans in the age of segregation.

A very rare panorama of 17th century London depicting the city skyline in the wake of the Great Fire of 1666 has sold at auction for £90,000.

With a documented provenance and inscribed by the maker Sébastien Garnier, Paris, 1747, a two-manual harpsichord was the top performer at the latest musical instruments sale held by Corsham, Bath, specialist Gardiner Houlgate (20% buyer’s premium).

Two first-edition versions of George Orwell’s 'The Road to Wigan Pier', the first part of which is an investigation into the working-class living conditions in Lancashire, Yorkshire and the industrial north, were published in 1937.

In an age of cumbersome large photographical apparatus, the race was on in the mid-19th century to produce practical small, easily portable cameras.

Photographica 2019 is a destination for collectors of classic cameras. The fair hosts up to 135 tables for buying, selling and swapping classic and antique cameras from across the country.

Running to 50 volumes in all, the official report on 'The Scientific Results of the Voyage of HMS Challenger during the years 1873-76 in Atlantic, Pacific and Antarctic seas' took some 23 years to complete.

Special Auction Services regularly holds sales of photographic equipment cameras and photographs in its Newbury rooms.

ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from April 16-27, 2019.

Zooming to a rather higher than predicted result in a collectables auction held earlier this month by Southgate Auction Rooms (20% buyer’s premium) was this camera and slides.

For the first time in more than 100 years the Lombard Haggadah, a medieval Jewish text with unique illustrations, is on public display at the New York gallery of Les Enluminures.

Devoted wholly to modern firsts, a recent online sale presented the first selection of a single-owner collection – the second portion of which will be sold later in the year.

An incomplete set of that remarkable ornithological work, William Lewin’s 'Birds of Great Britain', was the most expensive lot in a recent Yorkshire sale.

The early weeks of March proved a particularly busy time for one saleroom in the US. As well as sales featuring the medical and scientific collections of W Bruce Fye, reported in ATG No 2386, Bonhams New York (27.5/25/20/13.9%) also sold the seventh instalment of Eric Caren’s How History Unfolds on Paper collection online, and in itsMadison Avenue rooms offered Extraordinary Books & Manuscripts.

A double helping of vintage cameras and photographic equipment was recently staged at Chartres by the Ivoire group Lelièvre, Pascal, Maiche, Paris (20% buyer’s premium).