Auction Reports

The Singer 222K Featherweight is rated as one of the best sewing machines ever made.

The sale of Commemoratives, Fairings, Stevengraphs and Pot Lids at Historical & Collectable (24% buyer’s premium) included this rare pin cushion.

A selection of Doulton HN series rarities sold at three regional salerooms this month.

Ceramics by Hans Coper (1920-81) and Lucie Rie (1902-95) have been assimilated into the collecting sphere of Modern British art with spectacular effect.

The cylindrical brush pot or bitong appears to have been introduced into the repertoire of Chinese ceramic forms in the late 1620s.

The vast majority of Mauchline items seen today are engraved transfer-printed wares or other types of ‘fancy Scotch woodwork’ from the Victorian era such as fernware or tartanware.

Among the most desirable of all ‘Prattware’ transfer printed wares are the series of very rare and highly decorative advertising plaques produced for firms such as Crosse & Blackwell and Huntley & Palmers.

Charles de Temple is much admired as a key figure in the British 1960s modernist movement – one of the designers who ushered bold and abstract jewellery to the forefront of fashion.

Often from poor communities and mostly illiterate, men were limited in the ways in which they could plight their troth in 18th and 19th century Wales.

Coin dealer Patrick Deane first became interested in 17th and 18th century trade tokens in 1970 when working at Spink and Son. He sold his first collection of around 1250 pieces in 1984.

The sale at The Auction Centre (20% buyer’s premium) in Runcorn, Cheshire, on September 30 included this rare George III Scottish silver member’s badge for The Edinburgh Skating Club – the world’s first figure skating organisation.

Glasgow School designer’s embroidered silk design instantly stood out in a box of fabric.

Leading the sale of Fine Furniture, Works of Art & Clocks at Woolley & Wallis (25/12% buyer’s premium) in Salisbury on October 6 was a very fine pair of blue john and ormolu perfume burners by Matthew Boulton and John Fothergill.

Nineteenth-century Grand Tourists and souvenirs from the Orient made for a highly successful outing near Bristol where micro-mosaic panels, intaglios and Chinese vessels led the way at Clevedon Saleooms (22% buyer’s premium).

Bronze examples from the estate of renowned late metalware dealer catch the attention

Forty years after he began identifying Victorian rubbish heaps then digging in them, a Kent collector’s faith in the saying ‘where there’s muck there’s glass’ was vindicated when fellow enthusiasts demolished estimates on scores of his old bottles.

Two classic country house ‘garden’ form 17th century examples show their mettle

While traditional antique furniture prices are still relatively cheap, contemporary and mid-20th century material continues to be an expanding market.

A summer Design and Modern sale at Chiswick Auctions (25% buyer’s premium) included a small collection of ceramics by Dame Lucie Rie (1902- 95).

Although catalogued as Kangxi period, an ovoid blue and white vase offered by Stacey’s (20% buyer’s premium) on September 20 is a Transitional piece.