Collectables

First printed book dedicated to the game took the intriguing form of a heroic clash on Leith Links

Exhibited in New Bond Street over the summer, Bonhams’ auction titled The Greatest Show: The Fairground World of Ross Hutchinson was held over two days earlier this month: 150 lots at a live auction on September 10, with a further 150 through a timed online sale concluding the following day.

On a wintry February day in 1789 in a field on the outskirts of Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, a fight between Irishman Michael Ryan and English champion Thomas Johnson was heating up.

Such is the size of the ‘museum of collectables’ formed by the British toy designer Patrick Rylands, Hansons (26.5% buyer’s premium) in Derbyshire is selling the array in five separate auctions.

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

A letter written to John Constable by a key patron formed part of the sale of Old Masters and 19th Century Art at Chiswick Auctions on September 18.

An auction of Wisden Cricketers’ Almanacks and Cricket Books at Knights Sporting Auctions (20% buyer’s premium) in Norwich on September 14-15 was led by a first edition of the first separately published poem on cricket.

Whether it is a collection accumulated by a family often over generations or amassed through the efforts of an individual, such sales can deliver big results - especially now for regional auction houses winning consignments

The final day of Gardiner Houlgate’s latest guitar auction included a remarkable Victorian-era instrument: a rosewood and mother of pearl inlaid harp-guitar or ‘guitarpa’.