Auction Reports

The tills are ringing once more at Dreweatts (25% buyer’s premium). Under the ownership of the Gurr Johns group, the Newbury firm sold by Stanley Gibbons for £1.25m in 2017 has received a welcome shot in the arm.

The highlight of a Cornish auction on June 10 was an RAF logbook from Battle of Britain Spitfire pilot Flying Officer Arthur Peter Pease (1913-40).

The Leica I debuted at the 1925 Leipzig Spring Fair at a time when it was still common for glass plates to be used in cameras.

This impressive carved and painted wooden half-block model of a salmon measures an impressive 4ft 10in (1.48m) across.

An early 19th century German Grodnertal doll sold for £2500 (estimate £600-800) in Tennants’ (22% buyers premium) Costume, Accessories and Textiles Sale on May 28.

These two oak boarded chests, made to similar techniques four centuries apart, were offered for sale recently.

This Scottish Arts & Crafts brass framed mirror, above, is the epitome of the so-called Glasgow Style.

Grisly figures burning at the stake reflected religious background of Staffordshire potters

In June 2008, Canterbury Auction Galleries claimed a record price for a Louis Wain ceramic when a version of the 11in (28cm) Futurist Cat in blue with Amphora factory marks sold at £8200.

The Britains Boer War Army Service Corps Supply Column set is described by toy soldier expert James Opie as “one of the must-have sets for keen collectors”.

Spotlight on honours sold recently includes courageous lifesavers from civilian backgrounds.

Flight Lieutenant Maurice ‘Mark’ Mounsdon was one of only four remaining members of Sir Winston Churchill’s ‘The Few’ when he died in 2019 aged 101.

In May 2019 Spink (20% buyer’s premium) medal specialist Marcus Budgen was entrusted to catalogue the medals of Gunner A Howard, ‘N’ Battery, 5th Brigade, Royal Artillery, one of just four members of the RA present at the defence of Rorke’s Drift in the Zulu War.

A selection of Second World War ephemera with a distinctly Polish flavour estimated at £60-100 sold instead for £7600 at a Devon auction.

A private medal collection rated by Ipswich saleroom Lockdales (18% buyer’s premium) as “magnificent” was offered on May 20-22.

Long before Mirandinha, Faustino Asprilla and Nolberto Solano graced the hallowed turf of Newcastle United’s St James’ Park, two brothers paved the way for South American footballers to play professionally in England.

Simple white Wiener Werkstätte boxes epitomise fine design offered at trio of sales

The sale at jewellery auction house Elmwood’s (25% buyer’s premium) in London on May 19 included a remarkable family archive of antique items.

This late 18th century portrait bust of a gentleman by a sculptor from the circle of Joseph Nollekens (1737-1823) is traditionally thought to depict the prominent British Whig statesman Charles James Fox (1749-1806).

The Our Gang range of Second World War ‘types’ were designed for the Bovey Pottery Company by architect Fenton Wyness (1903-74) and modelled by artist Gwynneth Holt (1909-95). Both were based in Aberdeen in the 1940s.