Collectables

NASA are trying to play down news of a row with Apollo astronauts over the sale of artefacts from the space programme dating back to the 1960s and ‘70s.

IN a world where instant electronic communication and exchange of information is available to all, two lengths of original Morse code ticker-tape seem akin to tele-antiquities.

SINCE setting up on his own as Transporter Collectors Auctions eight years ago, Peter Card has enjoyed going by bike rather than car but the high point came on October 21 when a very rare 1869 model sold for a new high at his sale.

MORE than 20,000 naval postcards, thousands of photographs and slides, and a large quantity of books will be put up for sale at Lawrences in Crewkerne in May.

THE Robert Jones and Son second model corkscrew is perhaps the most desirable of all of the many Victorian patent corkscrews.

LAUNCHED by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak from the garage of Jobs’ parents home in July, 1976 – a month in which America’s bicentennial celebrations were the big news story – the Apple I was in fact the start of another revolution.

EXCITING plenty of bidding against its £500-800 estimate at Ely-based saleroom Rowley's was this rare 9in (22.5cm) early 17th century engraved horn shoehorn.

ON August 21, Andrew Hilton will host his first sale of commemoratives and pot lids under the new name of his business, Historical & Collectable.

THERE can be no more important figure in British inter-War aviation than the aircraft designer Reginald Joseph Mitchell (1895-1937).

PRIMARY source material relating to the last days of Napoleon’s life has emerged at a charity valuation event in New Zealand and will be offered for sale on June 29. The consignment of more than 40 items includes a lock of Napoleon’s hair and a sketch of the former emperor on his deathbed drawn from life.

SOMETHING for the dealer with almost everything, a personalised car registration plate with the legend ANT IK is being sold later this month.

There has been a happy ending to the century-long story of a missing pub sign painted in 1899 by Arts and Crafts artist Walter Crane for the Fox and Pelican pub in the Hampshire village of Grayshott.

ATG No 1871, January 3, 2009, featured a letter from Richard Peskett of the Grayshott Village Archive appealing for information about the whereabouts of the lost original pub sign from the Hampshire village’s only public house, The Fox and Pelican.

ACTION Comics ushered in the age of superheroes when its first issue hit the news stands in June 1938. On its cover was a curious character dressed in skintight blue and red lifting a green Chevrolet above his head, and the course of American pop culture was changed forever.

WHEN St John Price bought his first sycamore and penwork box from Halcyon Days in Brook Street, London for £30 in 1966, the term Mauchline ware was yet to be invented.

AT Sotheby's on July 17, a wooden file box containing nearly 4000 index cards compiled by the father of professional forensic pathology, Sir Bernard Spilsbury, sold at £15,000 to a collector.

This Carrs of Carlisle biscuit tin looks like pretty much any other Christmas biscuit tin from 1941 – except that it happens to be unopened.

A REAL rarity was offered by Sussex saleroom Tooveys of Washington on July 15 when this toll pass from 1744 came up for sale. Beautifully preserved in the original shagreen slipcase, this pass would seem to apply particularly to roads that fell within royal estates or administration rather than to a wider system of turnpike and toll roads.

François Nicole, the Geneva-based pioneer of the musical box, is thought to have made around 440 boxes during his working life, but only 60 are known today. Make that 61: courtesy of a local vendor another turned up at Cirencester auctioneer Moore Allen & Innocent on May 30.

In 1963, the daring actions of a 15-strong band of small-time London criminals captivated the world’s media. In 2007, it seems the Great Train Robbery still has the capacity to seize headlines.