Auctions

Dreweatts are to begin holding sales again in Godalming, Surrey. The former Hamptons salerooms, acquired by The Fine Art Auction Group in 2005, have operated only as an origination and valuation office since January 2007 but will return to action on October 28 with a catalogue of silver and jewellery.

This rare medal by the Glasgow silversmith Robert Gray & Son from c.1807 commemorates a successful campaign of the previous year to resist imposition of duties on the local tobacco trade.

A gold pattern Chinese coin picturing Chang Tso Lin (1875-1928) was dubbed 'one of the rarest coins in the world' by A.H. Baldwin & Sons and Ma Tak Wo Numismatic Co Ltd who offered it for sale in Hong Kong on August 28.

Whilst perhaps better known for selling reclaimed building materials, T.W. Gaze of Diss in Norfolk consistently attract lots of a more decorative nature in their five architectural sales each year. Their August 16 sale included this very fine quality early 18th century marble study of a boy holding aloft a bearded mask.

A DIARY kept by a sailor in Nelson’s navy was offered for sale in a US auction earlier this month. Given that diaries kept by ordinary sailors are exceptionally rare, there was huge interest in this visually striking document from both sides of the Atlantic with institutions, the trade and private collectors vying for the journal.

Phillips de Pury are holding the first ever auction of hip hop jewellery on October 1 in New York. The sale, titled Hip Hop's Crown Jewels will offer some serious bling worn by some of the music movement's biggest stars.

Bonhams are to sell the contents of Great Brampton House, Herefordshire, home to the antiques business of long-standing dealer Lady Pidgeon. The sale will take place on October 1 onsite in the grounds of the estate and will feature over 700 lots of furniture, works of art, Asian ceramics and paintings.

THE Standsted Mountfitchet saleroom Sworders are to sell the contents of Lancotbury Manor, a timber-framed Tudor manor house near Dunstable that was the former home of David Cochrane and Bernard Gulley.

AT Sotheby's on July 17, a wooden file box containing nearly 4000 index cards compiled by the father of professional forensic pathology, Sir Bernard Spilsbury, sold at £15,000 to a collector.

A previously unheard tape of a Beatles recording session, in which John Lennon and Paul McCartney break into giggles and crack jokes, has fetched £10,000 at Cameo auctioneers in Midgham, Berkshire.

Isle of Wight firm Island Auction Rooms established a new record for a clock sold by a UK provincial auctioneer when this remarkable longcase took £240,000 on August 7.

Christie’s have announced that they are to sell the multi-million collection of Yves St Laurent, who died in June, and his business partner Pierre Bergé in February next year.

CHRISTIE’S first wine sale in Asia for seven years will take place in November after the auctioneers have decided to reintroduce wine auctions in Hong Kong.

North Yorkshire auctioneers Tennants have cut a profitable niche selling the furniture of local craftsman Robert Thompson, but for their July sale they went one better.

TO the connoisseurial mind, it was not the paintings that lit up the Old Master series in London in early July but rather three rediscovered drawings by Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828) offered in a dedicated Old Master and 19th century works on paper sale at Christie’s on July 8.

THIS 2in (5cm) long brooch is textbook Lalique. Fashioned as a cicada, its main constituent is glass set into a gold frame. The insect’s body is formed from pâte de verre and the wings from plique à jour enamel, both favourite Lalique materials.

The final chapter in the story of ‘The Colin Wilson Monkeys’ ended quietly on July 30 when they sold at auction for an unspectacular £25,000.

Two major silver collections will be sold by UK provincial salerooms in the autumn season. Edinburgh-based auctioneers Lyon & Turnbull will offer for sale the first part of the Chen collection in London on November 23, while Salisbury’s Woolley & Wallis will complement their October silver sale with a single-owner catalogue devoted to the collection of the late George Petzall.

A REAL rarity was offered by Sussex saleroom Tooveys of Washington on July 15 when this toll pass from 1744 came up for sale. Beautifully preserved in the original shagreen slipcase, this pass would seem to apply particularly to roads that fell within royal estates or administration rather than to a wider system of turnpike and toll roads.

SOME 13 telephone bidders made their presence felt at a recent sale at Lawrences in Crewkerne, Somerset, as they turned out to compete for seven iconic 20th century prints by artists from the Grosvenor School of Art.