Richard Winterton

This vessel with its cluster of bottles around a central conical vase is one of several well-known Dresser-Linthorpe models that owe a debt to pre-Columbian art.

A self-portrait by the hitherto little-known Modern British artist Michael Gilbery (1913-2000) sold for a record £10,700 at auction in Lichfield last week.

The best-seller lists these days will always include a good number of explosive memoirs written by special forces veterans and their heroic stories usually also mean high interest at auction.

As implied by a plaque to the base titled 'Aeroplane Par Omertz' [sic], this gilt bronze and ivory figure of a boy in an aeroplane was by Georges Omerth (fl.1895-1925).

Roy Oxlade (1929- 2014) emerged in the 1950s as one of a distinguished group of painters, including Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff, who studied under David Bomberg at Borough Polytechnic in London.

A late Victorian diamond cluster necklet with an estimated total weight of 14.4cts sold in its original fitted case for £10,500 at Richard Winterton (20% buyer’s premium), Lichfield.

Disbound, but complete and still in the original covers, an 1830 first of William North’s Correct Account of all the Cricket Matches Played by the Nottingham Old Cricket Club from 1771 to 1829 came into bat in a recent Staffordshire sale with an estimate of just £50-100, but went on to score £6400 online via thesaleroom.com.

Pouring wine at the table from a standardised machine-made bottle is a relatively new custom. For centuries before the Victorian era, wine was typically bought and stored in the barrel and decanted into bottles or jugs only before use at the table.

Serendipity had it that three early pieces of European pottery and glass – two of them dated – were offered for sale across a trio of English regional auctions in a matter of days in December.