Auctioneers

Consignors to collapsed Australian auction house Mossgreen will not have to pay fees to have items returned, a Sydney court has ruled.

In the year of the 150th anniversary of Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s birth, Lyon & Turnbull has sold the very key used to open his design masterpiece, The Glasgow School of Art, in 1899.

Military badges offered at Bosleys provided a good snapshot of a niche collecting area.

A gripping story which, until recently, has remained shrouded in mystery, provides the backdrop for an intriguing test of the market for SAS medals.

To mark the centenary of the founding of the Royal Air Force, London auction house Spink is holding a special public exhibition featuring medals and relics on loan from prominent collectors.

A veteran of the Afghanistan war, a sniper who fought on for 90 minutes after being shot in the neck, is selling his medals in a London auction as he returns to civilian life.

Collection of more than 100 travel accounts is one highlight of a varied London auction.

An estimate of £120-150 was never going to do for a lot in a Leominster sale of March 28 that was catalogued, in full, as “STEIN, Sir Aurel, Serindia, a Detailed Report of Explorations in Central Asia and Westernmost, four vols, and a box with maps (5)”.

Bought recently for just £70 in a job lot, this German military-issue Leitz lens below sold for £5500 in Special Auction Services (17.5 buyer’s premium) Photographica sale on March 13. The Hektor 13.5cm f/4.5 lens, offered with an estimate of £4000-6000, sold to the European trade.

Something of a rarity, To Iceland in a Yacht appears to have no other auction appearances to its name. It was privately printed in Edinburgh in 1873 for its author, the chemist Robert Angus Smith (1817-84), a man best known for his work on air pollution and his identification of what later came to be known as acid rain.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.