Cuttlestones

A note penned in December 1963 by Mary Elizabeth Smith from The Mendips, Menlove Avenue, Liverpool, to a Miss V Stoker of 54 Pirton Road, Hitchin, sold for £1300 to a UK online bidder at Wolverhampton saleroom Cuttlestones (17.5% buyer’s premium) on March 19.

This image of children swinging along a watch tower was part of Banksy’s ‘Walled Off’ project that relates to the West Bank barrier between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

The latest Specialist Collectors’ Sale at Cuttlestones in Wolverhampton included a little bit of 20th century ceramics history.

Sapphires come in a range of hues from colourless to blue. The ‘fancy’ canary yellow stones, caused by trace amounts of iron, are particularly desirable - the best found in Sri Lanka.

Brought into Wolverhampton firm Cuttlestones (17.5% buyer’s premium) on a valuation day, this early-19th century anti-slavery tobacco box sold to a UK bidder on thesaleroom.com for £480.

It was scenes of pleasure boats at Lytham St Anne’s on the Lancashire coast like the one shown below that Lowry’s mother supposedly favoured over her son’s darker industrial scenes.

Online buying: realised prices at auctions on thesaleroom.com

At the budget-price end of the Chinese boom – which tends to get overlooked – profits are there for the keen eyed, such as the vendor of this twin-handled censer shown here.

This 9ct Rolex Tudor wristwatch below was presented by the Northern Irish FA to forward Derek Dougan, known by his nickname ‘The Doog’.

A fine example of a dirk, without which no Highland formal dresswear is complete, was among the stand-out lots at Cuttlestones’ (17.5% buyer’s premium) sale at Penkridge on November 22.

Found in a garden shed during a house clearance, this unrestored version of a classic c.1950 pedal car, below, attracted bidders online, on the phones and in the Wolverhampton rooms of Cuttlestones (17.5% buyer’s premium) on June 22.

A typically moody oil by the Scottish painter James Pryde (1866-1941) was among the star lots at Cuttlestones (17.5% buyer’s premium) in Penkridge, Staffordshire.

A remarkable group of 14 works by HG Wells – every one of them sporting a dust jacket – sold at strong and very often record sums in the book section of a December 15 sale held by Cuttlestones (17.5% buyer’s premium).

A group of five 8in (20cm) William de Morgan (1839-1917) tiles drew lively competitive bids at Cuttlestones in Wolverhampton on June 8.

A lithograph of David Roberts’ (1796-1864) lost painting The siege and destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans under the command of Titus took top honours at Staffordshire auction house Cuttlestones (17.5% buyer’s premium) on March 2-3.