Collectables

A round-up of art and antiques news from the previous seven days, including a copy of The Beano No 1 selling for a five-figure sum at auction.

Two sporting ‘firsts’ are being marked by lots coming up in separate auctions this month.

Priced on the cover at nine pence, it was a British copy of a Marvel comic of 1983, one that saw the first appearance of the mighty Thor, that led the bidding at £6300 in the comics section of a July 21-22 sale held by Fieldings (24% buyer’s premium).

Bonhams is to offer what it calls ‘the finest collection of Welsh treen ever presented’ for auction next month.

Three lots at Tennants’ (22% buyer’s premium) traced the history of Stan Dodds (1928-2012) – the first and foremost of the Critters.

Sold for $2m (£1.62m) in a major and hugely successful comics sale held by Heritage (20% buyer’s premium) of Dallas was an original cover artwork produced in 1986 by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley for Batman: The Dark Knight Returns #1.

“Analogous to the Tunbridge ware but of a superior character” was Robert Russell’s description of his work at the 1851 Great Exhibition.

Unknown as he is to the vast majority of people, even Americans, Button Gwinnett is certainly renowned among collectors of early US history.

Butterscotch in New York is holding its summer estates auction on July 17.

Almost two thousand years ago, a wealthy Roman woman would have kept her jewellery or trinkets in a cylindrical box, a so-called Pyxis. They were originally plain vessels, often made of pottery.

A real stand-out success in the Comic Book Auctions (20% buyer’s premium) timed online sale that ended on May 29 was to be found among the large collection of US comics that were offered without reserve – albeit a British issue of the comic bearing a cover price of nine pence.

These two oak boarded chests, made to similar techniques four centuries apart, were offered for sale recently.

This remarkable Baccarat tantalus in the form of an elephant and howdah sold at Can$120,000 (£75,000) at an auction in Victoria, British Columbia.

The six lots described here are drawn from a hugely successful sale of comics and comic art held in Dallas by Heritage (20% buyer’s premium) over four days, from April 7-10.

'Bewegungsstudie', or ‘Study of Movement’, by Rudolf Koppitz, is the most famous of six tipped-in photogravures, each with a protective glassine sheet, that make up Pictures from the Tyng Collection, a 1931 publication of the Royal Photographic Society.

Thousands of items are available to buy from dealers online. Here we pick out one that caught our eye this week.

Charterhouse (25% buyer’s premium) has been holding auctions of classic cars, motorcycles and automobilia for nearly 20 years.

Re: your article in ATG No 2538 (A Trio of Arts & Crafts designers in focus) including a Mouseman oak blanket chest sold at Sheffield Auction Gallery for £12,000 hammer, which features the mouse carved in recess rather than profile.