Collectables

Such is the recent appeal of dolls’ house accessories that you do not even need the ‘house’ to put them in, it seems.

By the 1980s toy action figures were shrinking in size from GI Joe and Action Man proportions to the likes of Action Force and Star Wars.

On August 19 Pook & Pook will sell the collection of Barbara A and Fred Johnson of Rockford, Illinois, owners of Barbara A Johnson Antiques.

A live-steam Gauge 2 Midland Railway locomotive and tender was the top lot of Tennants’ (20% buyer’s premium) Toys, Models, Collectables and Sporting Sale.

This rare French Emile Jumeau bisque-headed character doll from c.1892, with a distinctive light brown complexion, turned heads in a US saleroom.

Thomaston Place is holding one of its extensive multi-discipline summer sale over three days from August 27-29 featuring a wide mix of American, European and Asian paintings, furnishings and objects.

Hotlotz in Singapore holds a single-owner online auction on August 22 featuring the ‘property of a gentleman’.

A snuff box believed to have been gifted by Lord Nelson to his personal secretary during a dinner party attended by Emma Hamilton has been sold by Paul Fraser Collectables for £45,000.

Edition marked the first time a person of African descent had work published

As his nickname suggests, Wing Commander Sidney Baker (1918-2007) enjoyed the finer things in life.

Illustrated with 76 hand-coloured flags, a 1794 Signal Book for the Ships of the Line sold to an online bidder for £11,000 in a Shrewsbury sale.

Cheffins’ auction in Cambridge on August 26 includes a silver presentation salver given to Air Vice Marshal James Edgar ‘Johnnie’ Johnson (1915-2001), the highest-scoring Western Allied pilot against the Luftwaffe and the RAF’s officially recognised top-scoring fighter pilot of the Second World War.

An intriguing condition report that mentions ‘water and smoke damage’ gives a clue as to what happened to this battered copy of the Encyclopedia Britannia sold in a Charles Miller (24% buyer’s premium) auction.

A new high for a British army Victoria Cross as 'exceptional’ example also sets a house record for a medal at Dix Noonan Webb

An update from Jeremy Carson, organiser of PBFA’s Brighton Book Fair which will run at Brighton Racecourse (assuming it is not being used as a vaccination centre then…) on Saturday, October 30 – the first in Brighton for more than 20 years.

A Texas sale generated six-figure sums for two very different lots.

Among the medal groups that impressed at Dix Noonan Webb's July 21 auction was one awarded to a famous recipient: RAF Group Captain Peter Townsend.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

The sale of a Military Cross group of honours at Woolley & Wallis (25/12% buyer’s premium) of Salisbury marked what is believed to be the first time that the medals of a British prime minister have been offered at auction.