Latest News Articles by Ian McKay
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Potter: battered and pristine
04 April 2022Harry Potter just keeps on doing well at auction, and Hansons (25% buyer’s premium), which has enjoyed a particularly close and profitable relationship with JK Rowling’s creation over the years, had more to offer in a March 9 sale.
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Album reveals hidden Tibet and letter unveils polar expedition
04 April 2022Polar material in a travel and exploration themed sale held on March 2 by Bonhams (27.5/25/20/14.5% buyer’s premium) produced a bid of £24,000 for a letter that Robert Falcon Scott wrote to a friend, Lady Goodrich, about his planned British Antarctic Expedition of 1910.
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Finely bound to honour Percy the organ player
28 March 2022The elaborately tooled and richly decorated binding with its gilt inner dentelles shown right was made to contain an address ‘To Percy L. Pewtress Esq., Organist at Lee Chapel’, who had served the congregation of that south-east London church from 1883-1922.
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Frank Bellamy Eagle artwork flies highest to beat Buster and Dandy
28 March 2022Billed as the star lot in a sale that ended on February 27, a scarce copy of the 1937 first issue of Dandy made a high-estimate £3450.
UK and Irish book auctions: March 28-April 8, 2022
28 March 2022Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.
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Mocked at first, miniature books made a Glasgow publisher’s reputation and fortune
28 March 2022“It’s not often we offer for sale a library of nearly 200 volumes by the same publisher as a single lot – and certainly not one that fits in a small suitcase.”
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Docker-Drysdale delights at Mallams
28 March 2022Many of the lots in an Oxford sale of February 23 formed part of the estate of Canadian linguistic and literary scholar, the late ‘Paddy’ Docker-Drysdale.
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Thinking caps on for works of Confucius at Catherine Southon auction
21 March 2022Sold online at £5500 in a February 2 sale held by Catherine Southon (24% buyer’s premium) at Farleigh Court Golf Club in Surrey was a copy in full mottled calf gilt of the first European edition of the works of Confucius (551-479BC).
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Early images of Yosemite and Yellowstone emerge in US sales
21 March 2022Running to 63 photographs, a virtually complete set of those produced for Carleton Watkins’ 1863 publication '…Photographic Views of the Falls and Valley of Yosemite' in Mariposa County, California featured in a January 27 sale at Nate D Sanders (25% buyer’s premium) of Los Angeles.
British and Irish book auctions: March 22-April 1, 2022
21 March 2022Our regular listing of upcoming British and Irish book sales.
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Books and works on paper: Dante and discovery delights
21 March 2022Venetian edition of Commedia, lunar map and account of Polar voyages surface in Milan.
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Famous names feature from Bach to Henry VIII
21 March 2022The best-seller at $400,003 (£296,300)* in a recent sale at RR Auction was a doubly signed receipt in which Johann Sebastian Bach acknowledges payment of the sum of five guilders under the terms of Sabina Nathan’s legacy.
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First burst of feminist thinking
14 March 2022Anonymous complete edition from 1696-97 is now recognised as the work of Mary Astell
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Golden oldies at Cumbria auction
14 March 2022Formed by a local man, the late Brian Ferguson, a collection of over 40 books issued by the Golden Cockerel Press featured in an auction held by Thomson Roddick (18% buyer’s premium) of Carlisle.
British and Irish book auctions: March 15-26, 2022
14 March 2022Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.
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Burmese blaze and golden gains
07 March 2022Nineteenth century aquatint and map provide global perspective in Gloucestershire saleroom
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Dulac Snow Queen drifts in
07 March 2022This splendid example of the illustrative work of Edmund Dulac, a watercolour, gouache and ink drawing on paper, is his original artwork for one of the 28 plates he produced for a 1911, Hodder & Stoughton edition of Stories from Hans Andersen.
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Sumptuous seaweeds at Surrey sale
07 March 2022A set of the four volumes that make up William G Johnstone & Alexander Croall’s 'Nature-Printed British Sea-Weeds' of 1859-60 was offered in a December 21 sale at John Nicholson’s (20% buyer’s premium) in Fernhurst, Surrey.
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Signed writer photo-portraits at Christie's
07 March 2022The two signed photo-portraits of writers reproduced here formed part of a November 17-December 1 sale held by Christie’s (15/20/14.5% buyer’s premium) that dispersed a single-owner collection of literary manuscripts billed as Exiles and Idealists.
UK and Irish book auctions: March 8-19, 2022
07 March 2022Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.