Auctions

Familiarly known as the Bay Psalm Book, one of the finest surviving copies of the first book printed in what is now the USA is expected to become the world’s most expensive book at Sotheby’s New York in November.

This 15-star American War Naval Jack used in the Anglo-American War of 1812, is thought to be the first of its kind to be offered at auction.

Among the most elusive of all Royal Doulton HN series figures is the curious model of a winged cherub astride a crocodilian known simply as ‘Boy on a Crocodile’.

Fonsie Mealy Auctioneers are selling hundreds of items from Fort William, a quirky Tudor Revival-style mansion in Lismore, Co Waterford, Ireland.

Christie’s are to hold auctions in Shanghai from this autumn, making them the first international fine art auction company to win a licence to operate independently in mainland China.

The latest mixed-owner sale of Old Masters, furniture and objets d’art in Paris held at Drouot by Beaussant Lefèvre saw some estimate-crushing prices and two pre-emptions by the Louvre.

The spring catalogue sale at Tennants of Leyburn closed with 14 pieces of furniture either by or in the manner of Gillows.

A number of Edvard Munch (1863-1944) prints at the latest specialist prints sales in London showed how much buyers are in tune with the artist’s ‘personal touch’.

This pair of full-size library globes was the pick of more than 800 lots from a Pembrokeshire country house sold by Carmarthen firm Peter Francis.

Rago Auctions’ recent modern auction in Lambertville, New Jersey featured a Josef Hartwig-designed chess set of the 1920s.

Promising to rank among the auction highlights of the summer, Christie’s are to sell the fabled Benson collection of early spoons on June 4.

People sipping wine may be a slightly less familiar subject for Nevinson, but a copy of the print 'Sur La Terrasse, Parnasse' will appear at Bonhams sale of Grosvenor School and Avant Garde British Printmaking in New Bond Street on April 16.

Once a common sight on British streets and in public buildings, late Victorian and Edwardian cast-iron vending machines were scrapped for their metal content as they became obsolete or necessary for the war effort.

With a $10m estimate, what is being billed as the most important single lot of rock and pop memorabilia ever to come up for auction goes on view in London on April 18.

If ever there was a single record that could lay claim to truly starting the Rock and Roll era, it must be Elvis Presley’s first single ‘That’s all right (Mama)’, recorded in Memphis in July 5, 1954.

This exceptional Spanish flintlock sporting gun is dated 1739, but both the gun and case bear the arms of Pope Pius VII, whose papacy was dominated by the Vatican’s troubled relationship with France during the Napoleonic period nearly a century later.

Of more than 2000 different recorded horse brass designs, the most desirable are traditionally the so-called ‘merit awards’ given as prizes at working horse parades.

Papier-mâché pull-along models of bulldogs and terrier with nodding heads and growling mechanisms were popular amusements in the late Victorian and Edwardian eras – but it seems not all of the examples seen on the market today are quite so old.

The best Chinese works of art continue to prosper in the salerooms.

One hestitates to contradict the great metaphysical poetic and theologian John Donne who believed that ‘death comes equally to us all, and makes us all equal when it comes’.