Auctioneers

Christie’s is to return to the classic car market following an agreement to acquire Gooding & Company.

With Old Master sleeper spotters trawling through online catalogues looking for works with hidden potential, it’s not unusual for the odd lot to draw an unexpected bidding at sales all over the country.

Only a handful of Byzantine-style gold and micro-mosaic pieces by Antonio Civilotti (1798-1870) have appeared for sale in recent years.

Mary Tudor’s personal copy of Vergil’s history of England has sold at auction for £140,000.

The Gerard collection of Chinese export silver comes for sale at Chiswick Auctions on October 9.

A Cray-1 Supercomputer owned by the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen set a new high for any computer sold at auction when it took $810,000 (£618,320) at Christie’s New York.

The bad news if you have a first edition of 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone' in soft covers is that they are not as rare as the hardback version which numbered 500 copies.

On entering an Edwardian fairground, the sheer size and scale of the ornately carved ‘bioscope’ show front would stop an observer in their tracks.

Bonhams is set to relocate its New York headquarters from 580 Madison Avenue to the historic Steinway Hall at 111 West 57th Street.

A sketch which was given by the Marquis de Lafayette to the first American president George Washington sold for $1.6m (£1.22m) at an auction in Philadelphia earlier today.

What promises to be a market-defining sale for two well-known Modern British artists will be held in Essex this autumn.

This week Anderson & Garland is offering for sale the private collection of militaria and weapons belonging to Douglas Napier Anderson (b.1927).