Collectables

The Antiquarian Booksellers Association will participate in its first BADA fair as it gears up for its summer festival of old and rare books later this year.

It was the end of an era in Oxford when Ducker & Son, the bespoke shoemaker and home of the Oxford brogue, sadly closed down last November. The venerable 6 Turl Street store had traded in the centre of the city since 1898.

Easter Rising 1916 memorabilia may be treasured now by collectors, especially after last year’s centenary, but a medal just sold at auction in Ireland once ended up in a bin rather than proudly displayed.

What is the next collecting area about to take off when it comes to toys? As detailed often in ATG, rare Star Wars figures are now making big money. Lego is another popular market as 40 and 50-somethings settle down, get wealthier and get nostalgic about the toys they played with as kids.

Keep Calm and Carry On is the now famous instruction from the Second World War thanks to a plethora of copycat items inspired by the poster which was never officially issued.

Not many wartime flags survive to be sold at auction due to their inevitably fragile nature, but those flown by Allied forces during the D-Day landings must have been particularly precious as mementos.

An auction of 3000 items from the estate of the late antiquarian book dealer Thomas Schuster is big news for fans of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Unless you have been in a galaxy far, far away for quite some time, you will have heard of Luke Skywalker, Ewoks and Han Solo. But have you heard of a Vlix?

The beautiful Beatrix Potter children’s books are highly collectable in themselves but the author’s world provides a far wider and very popular collecting scene.

“Beautifully gilded”, “hand painted”, “much sought after”. Perhaps not words that are commonly applied to police batons, but this is how auctioneer Charles Hanson described the collection of British truncheons coming up for auction this month.

America’s previously neglected founding father Alexander Hamilton is now firmly back to prominence after the Broadway hit ‘Hamilton’, which won eleven Tony Awards last year. The show is now coming to London's West End this year.

Baldwin’s of St James’s, launched at the current The New York International Numismatic Convention (NYINC), brings the auction business of numismatists AH Baldwin & Sons and St James’s Auctions together.

A photograph album of the ‘real Downton Abbey’ has been revealed after 120 years and will be up for auction next month.

With the heroics of ‘the few’ in the Battle of Britain more or less guaranteeing auction interest, it is easy to overlook the incredible bravery of bomber crews.

Evelyn Waugh fans should listen up: one of the writer’s ear trumpets will be offered at auction.

The plastic fiver has become a familiar sight in the UK since it was issued last September and this summer the tenner version will follow. It seems unlikely that glass coins will also appear – but that was not the case in the US in 1942.

A rare European gold coin found by a dog-walker on a Cornish beach is to be auctioned in Penzance later this month.

The hive of art world activity in the Big Apple in January kicks off with the New York International Numismatic Convention, or NYINC, which takes place at the Waldorf Astoria.