Collectables

The vintage contents of a railway station buffet offered in East Yorkshire were not the most upmarket pieces – nothing made more than £2000 – but more than 400 people packed the room and online bids came from India, the US and Finland. It gave veteran auctioneer Andy Spicer only his second white-glove sell-out in 35 years on the rostrum.

A collection of automaton advertising panels formed by two dedicated enthusiasts over a 20-year period will go under the hammer on March 12 at Drouot in Paris in a sale mounted by Auction Art Rémy le Fur.

The arts of the Ottoman court are performing strongly in the marketplace. The unexpected highlight of Lyon & Turnbull’s Five Centuries auction in Edinburgh on February 5 was an Ottoman saddle.

Across the pond in New York, the trade kicked off the year with the major international fair The Winter Show.

International Autograph Auctions Ltd has ceased trading and is being placed in voluntary liquidation.

The latest sale at Clarks in Liskeard included a collection of walking canes collected by the late actor Edward Woodward.

The sale of furniture and decorative arts at Hindman in Chicago on February 11 includes these two late 19th century gadget canes, both mounted with the insignia of British army regiments.

The limited, but international, appeal of a remarkable collection of about 350 Victorian hand-painted glass eyes was clear at East Bristol Auctions (18% buyer’s premium).

As in its September auction, a double-page Frank Bellamy artwork featuring ‘Heros the Spartan’ proved a star turn in the latest Comic Book Auctions (19% buyer’s premium) online sale on thesaleroom.com.

Australasia provided the talking points and two main buyers at the recent Tennants (20% buyer’s premium) specialist sale in the Yorkshire Dales.

This Victorian mother-of-pearl and abalone shell card case is carved with a portrait of George Lord Byron, the most flamboyant and notorious of the major English Romantic poets.

A story of extraordinary peacetime gallantry of a Cumbrian seaman turned coalminer was at the heart of a group of medals, photographs and press cuttings offered at Reeman Dansie (20% buyer’s premium) at Colchester on November 28.

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

The leading contenders in the December 12 General Election are struggling to land any meaningful blows on each other, despite being more than happy to be photographed in boxing rings.

The huge and ongoing task of cataloguing thousands of cigarette cards and other ephemera from a deceased collector’s home – he had walls pasted with beer mats instead of wallpaper – paid off for Bristol auctioneer Gavin Aplin.