Auction Reports

Edward Haughey, Baron Ballyedmond (1944-2014) – the founder of the Norbrook pharmaceutical group in Northern Ireland – proved just as influential in the world of politics as he was in business.

The best-known press-moulded models made by John Derbyshire at the Regent Road Flint Glassworks in Salford are the series of animal and figural paperweights made in frosted, flint and coloured glass.

Around the year 1904, during the Second Period of Belleek production in Fermanagh, Ulster, designer William Harris designed the Five O’Clock pattern.

In Tibetan Buddhism the elephant-headed deity Vignataka is treated with considerable ambivalence.

Classic Robert Thompson products from family collections underline current keen demand.

The Robert Thompson firm produced shire horses, such as this example offered by Lawrences (25% buyer’s premium) of Crewkerne on July 23, from the 1960s-90s.

The so-called Elcho bayonet was designed for the Martini-Henry rifle in 1870 by Lord Elcho, the 10th Earl of Wemyss & March.

The centuries-old Indonesian habit of chewing betel nut, the fruit of the reach palm, was quickly adopted by settlers from the Dutch East India Company who appreciated both its psychoactive properties and its importance as a local social ritual.

Estimated at £100-200 but sold for £2800 at Thomas Watson (25% buyer’s premium) in Darlington on August was a set of four Worcester parian menu holders.

This Royal Navy Reserve officer’s sword owned by Robert Erskine Childers was estimated at €3000-5000 in a recent auction by Mullen’s (20/12.5% buyer’s premium) in Bray, Co Dublin. The scabbard throat of the Victorian 1827-pattern sword is engraved 'RE Childers'.

Some aspects of the traditional antiques market continue to perform with zest – and ‘folk art’ is among them.

Two traditional drinking vessels brought surprising toasts to European craftsmen at Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood (23% buyer’s premium) in Exeter.

Estimated at just £30-50, a late 19th century sampler sold via thesaleroom.com for £1850 at Wotton Auction Rooms (18% buyer’s premium) in Gloucestershire. A clue to the appeal is the inscription 'M Mountain, 5 Orphan House, Ashley Down, Bristol, 1879'.

Nestlé, today a Swiss multinational corporation, was a much smaller company when this rare lithographed showcard was made.

Pictured here are two of four photographs by Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-79) sold via thesaleroom.com for £8000 by Duke’s (22% buyer’s premium) of Dorchester.

Collected by a Scottish enthusiast, 26 railway station totems – the enamel signs introduced across the UK by newly nationalised British Rail in 1948 – gained UK-wide interest at McTear’s (24% buyer’s premium) in Glasgow.

Although a smaller affair than the much better-known Isle of Wight festival of the same year, the Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music, held on June 27-28, 1970, at the Shepton Mallet showground, boasted perhaps the greatest UK music festival line-up of all time.

Pictured here are three good examples of Worcester hard-paste porcelain from the early decades of the 19th century – at which time there was a trio of factories operating in the city.

Delayed for a month by the pandemic, the specialist sewing sale held as a timed online auction on thesaleroom.com at Bleasdales (20% buyer’s premium) of Warwick proved a profitable stitch in time. The sale, which covered the gamut of collectables, closed with only 16 of the 665 lots failing to get away.

Pair thought to be Derby are rated as Gilbody rarities by specialist and dealer who competed