Collectables

BACK in 1936, a Mr Harry Woods decided to refurbish his home, The Gate House in Brighouse, and commissioned a fellow Yorkshireman, working some 50 miles away, to provide interior panelling, window seats and doors, as well as various items of furniture.

Ten Mouseman stools were stolen from The Forresters Arms Hotel in Kilburn, North Yorkshire in the early hours of Monday, November 26.

ON Friday and Saturday, February 23 and 24, the Royal Bath and West Showground at Shepton Mallet will host the largest postcard, tradecard, postal history and ephemera fair in the UK.

Like needlework, letter writing and mastering the harpsichord, rolled paperwork or quillwork was deemed a suitable pursuit for a young lady of the 18th century.

“I leave to my dear friend Taffy my Compass so that he may occasionally know where he is going/ My Watch which almost cost me my life so that he may occasionally arrive at an appointed time / With Regards from his erstwhile passenger Lawrence.”

THE Bloomsbury Postcard and Collectors Fair is now in its 22nd year and is, say organisers IPM Promotions, the largest monthly postcard fair in the world with more than 120 tables selling all types of paper collectables.

WHERE polar exploration collectables are concerned, Christie’s have in recent years enjoyed, if not a monopoly, then certainly a strong grip on the auction market.

A vast photographic postcard archive depicting Devon in the first half of the 20th century has emerged in Nottinghamshire.

It’s not difficult to see how Dunhill ‘fish tank’ lighters got their name. Not only do these 1950s perspex and electroplated lighters resemble miniature aquariums, but most were decorated with aquatic subjects.

Madame Tussauds added Winston Churchill to their waxwork tableaux for the first time in 1908, but had produced another half dozen portraits before his death in 1965. The last of them was put up for sale by Dominic Winter on May 18.

To collectors of the so-called castle-top card cases, subject matter is everything. Pictured here is a great rarity.

Christie's New York (10/12% Buyer's premium)SNUFF bottles vary enormously in quality and price but the J&J collection has to rank as one of the world’s foremost specialist holdings. Although these exquisitely made and highly decorative vessels have a following of strong international collectors, inevitably there are limited buyers for top-end imperial quality works.

Special Postcard Auctions, Cirencester, February 28, Buyer’s premium: 10 per cent THE First World War was the main attraction at the Corinium Galleries when a single silk showing a bearded Un Diable Bleu – the nickname given to France’s gallant and celebrated Chasseurs Alpin regiment – led the day at £290, and a similar portrait bust of Un Poilu (infantryman) made £230.

Good corkscrews continue to attract solid sums. Alongside the likes of Thomas Lund and Edwin Cotterill, Robert Jones is one of the big names of the English patent market, if only because his so-called ‘Robert Jones II’ is among the rarest and most valuable of all corkscrews.

The recent competition seen for rare First World War silks was repeated at the sale conducted by Specialised Postcard Auctions (10% buyer’s premium) of Cirencester on December 6.

The main head-turner at the Hove sale held by Scarborough Perry Fine Arts (15% buyer’s premium) on December 2-3 was this striking 19th century Italian, gold-mounted tortoiseshell snuffbox with a finely executed micromosaic lid, right.

Halls (15% buyer’s premium) "It was quite a rare object, in good working order and sang beautifully.”

BK Art & Antiques, Gloucester, November 11Buyer’s premium: 15 per cent

A novelty locomotive sweet container for Chlorodyne Lozenges (probably some form of cough drop) proved a star attraction at Richard Winterton’s December 1 collectors’ auction in Burton on Trent last week.

THE well advertised sale of Railwayana & Military Memorabilia was held in H.J Pugh & Co’s Ledbury salerooms on the 13th October and was another successful auction.