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A toy engine offered at North Yorkshire saleroom Tennants (20% buyer’s premium) sold for what is thought to be a new world record for a Hornby Dublo locomotive.

Written just a year before his death in 1955, a famous two-page letter in which Albert Einstein put down his thoughts on religion, his Jewish identity and his own search for the meaning of life sold for $2.4m (£1.89m) in a New York auction on December 4.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

MADAM – As someone who has been dealing in early furniture for over 50 years and who has served on vetting committees for the Grosvenor House and BADA fairs as well as having been a consultant for Sotheby’s, I find TEFAF’s decision to exclude dealers from their vetting is frankly bizarre.

This very rare bear shown below made a very high price for such a small fellow – just 14cm (5½in) high.

Literary high spots of a Bonhams (25/10/12% buyer’s premium) sale of November 27 included a three-volume, 1813 first of Jane Austen’s 'Pride and Prejudice'.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

MADAM – Re: condition report charges at Moore Allen & Innocent for lower-value items.

It is 40 years since 19th century potlids were the collectables of choice but there is still a very active market for them.

Along with Pallas’ 'Flora Russica', the 'Icones Plantarum novarum… floram Rossicam' of the German-Estonian botanist Carl Friedrich von Ledebour is recognised as one of the great works on Russian flora.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

MADAM – Now that sticky labels have raised ire in the art world (Letters, ATG passim), your readers might like to know that they are the bookseller’s equivalent of Post-It notes in books.

The highlight of the latest series of Old Master sales in London was not a painting this time around but a rare work on paper by an enigmatic draughtsman.

Musicians from different generations provided sound results at Suffolk saleroom Bishop & Miller (19% buyer’s premium).

“When I was putting this exhibition together, a lot of people thought I would not be able to find 50 different women British artists to show. In the end, I could have shown 500,” says Sacha Llewellyn of 20th century British art specialist Liss Llewellyn.

Doom and gloom surrounds retailing in the UK but in the trade plenty of antique centres are bucking the trend. Here we bring you a short focus on a few of them – ideal places to buy a variety of stock offered from a number of dealers in one spot.

MADAM – I appreciate I had my turn the other day (Letters, ATG No 2369), but a quick note covering two points if I may.

ATG’s selection of auction lots bought by internet bidders on thesaleroom.com from the period November 29-December 5 2018. This includes both the highest prices over estimate and the top prices paid online.

Illustrated here are some of the oldest lots ever auctioned – three in the Evolution Sale at on November 20 at Summers Place Auctions (25/20% buyer’s premium) of Billingshurst, West Sussex, and the other from Fonsie Mealy (23% buyer’s premium inc VAT) of Castlecomer, Ireland, in a sale held on the same day.

A c.1900 gold and enamel Archibald Knox (1864-1933) necklace is among the items lent by Anthony Bernbaum of The Peartree Collection for an exhibition at the Manx Museum.