Auctions

In our weekend series, Antiques Trade Gazette brings you a selection of quotes from dealers, auctioneers, collectors and others – from inventive anglers and atomic bombs to those collectors who are getting cannier all the time.

John Lennon’s letter to the Queen returning his MBE could make its £60,000 for the vendor who acquired it for only £10.

A new record for an empty English medicine bottle was set by BBR Auctions in Elsecar, North Yorkshire when a Victorian flask of ‘Dr Sibley’s Solar Tincture’ took £8200.

Christie’s have appointed the former Metropolitan Museum curator Stijn Alsteens as international head of the Old Master drawings department.

Christie’s New York have announced the sale of more than 30 pieces of Chinese art from Osaka’s Fujita Museum which will be offered at auction next year.

A limited edition photo of two members of The Beatles and a new signed monograph by the photographer who took it are part of a 107-lot timed charity auction that closes on November 6.

The collection of the late Asian art valuer Richard Cole will be sold at auction next month.

A key which opened a life-jacket locker on the Titanic was one of the highlights of Henry Aldridge & Son’s auction last week.

C&T Auctioneers will hold its first sale dedicated to mechanical, music scientific instruments and technical apparatus under its newly appointed specialist Laurence Fisher on November 2.

A near total sell-out greeted Sotheby’s sale of Indian miniatures from the Khosrovani-Diba collection offered as part of London’s Indian and Islamic art series.

A rare example of a Queen Anne 'Vigo' five-guinea gold coin has emerged at Essex auctioneers Boningtons. It will be offered at their sale in Epping on November 16 with an estimate of £200,000-250,000.

In our weekend series, Antiques Trade Gazette brings you a selection of quotes from dealers, auctioneers, collectors and others – from Far East fakes to rabbi paintings and what dealer Gordon Watson said after selling his collection.

An ornately decorated Rolls-Royce, which includes Rococo-style panels, a French ormolu clock and Elkington gilt bronze mounts, is one of the starring lots at Bonhams' upcoming Bond Street sale.

Webbs of Wilton, near Salisbury, are conducting a sale of paintings by three generations of the Benney family on November 2.

At just over 17in (42cm) high, the 1920s Wedgwood vase (shape 2465) is among the largest produced in the Fairyland Lustre range.

The excitement around the new polymer fivers, which were launched by the Bank of England last month, helped boost interest in new and old £5 notes for philatelic and numismatic specialists Spink.

More than 50 portraits of rabbis will be put on display and offered for sale in south west London.

Coalport porcelain, like that produced at Derby, is renowned for its quality and decoration, drawing inspiration from work produced at the celebrated Sèvres factory.

A rare Chinese Imperial Beijing enamel vase bought for £10 at a car boot sale is to go to auction in Salisbury next month carrying a £20,000-30,000 estimate.

The boxing trunks worn by Muhammad Ali in a famous but controversial fight against Henry Cooper will be offered at a Graham Budd auction next month, estimated at £70,000-90,000.