Auctions

Philatelic and numismatic specialists Spink have posted annual sales figures of just under £29m.

Annual auction totals hold steady across provincial salerooms.

Sherborne auctioneers Charterhouse have been instructed to sell the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) and Distinguished Flying Medal (DFM) pair awarded to a member of 617 Squadron, more commonly known as The Dambusters.

Delftware experts Aronson of Amsterdam have recently reunited this pair of c.1690 Delft ‘bouquetière’ figures depicting William and Mary.

Five truly remarkable items of British wartime history are being offered for sale at J.P. Humbert Auctioneers of Towcester.

A recent sale in London saw the auction records for Tudor coins rewritten by two choice examples of a golden denomination.

An example of the first of America’s iconic silver dollars will be on sale at Spink USA later this month.

The bosses of a Berkshire auction house who defrauded customers of up to £250,000 have been found guilty of nine out of 11 charges.

A superb combination of history, condition and rarity came together as a figurehead from a Brazilian slavers’ ship sold at Essex saleroom Sworders for ten times the low estimate at £50,000.

Personal effects of Sir Winston Churchill, including the morocco dispatch box pictured here, were among the highlights of Sotheby’s highly publicised estate sale of his youngest child, the late Mary Soames.

Sherborne auctioneers Charterhouse are on a roll with Republican period (1911-49) porcelain.

More than half the receipts from Christie’s inaugural Exceptional sale in New York came from a single lot. And it was one with quite a history.

Appearing at a recent sale held by Toovey’s of Washington, West Sussex, this Imperial Qianlong famille rose and calligraphic vase sold for a house-record £520,000.

“It is a somewhat incoherent narrative, which, however, gives Lon Chaney an opportunity to turn up in an uncanny disguise and also to manifest his powers as Scotland Yard’s expert hypnotist. You are therefore treated to close-ups of Mr Chaney’s rolling orbs, which, fortunately, do not exert their influence on the audience.”

One of the best-loved of all of E.H. Shepard’s illustrations to the famous A.A. Milne books has set a saleroom record after selling for £260,000.

The stock of the Austrian-born British studio potter Lucie Rie (1902-95) continues to rise in the saleroom.

One of the greatest ‘barn finds’ ever has uncovered 60 classic cars – just one of which is a rare Ferraris valued at several million pounds – in outbuildings in the west of France.

Pre-war delivery vans advertising commercial brand names have long acquired trophy status in the Dinky toy market.

It was, say Timeline Auctions, “probably the most important medieval seal to come to market” and certainly the most important object the firm had ever offered for sale, according to CEO Brett Hammond.

The outstanding lot of the latest Old Master auction series in London, ‘Rome, from Mount Aventine’ by J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851), was knocked down at £27m at Sotheby’s evening sale, setting a record price for the artist.