Latest News Articles by Ian McKay
Very special Fleming 007 at Keys
31 January 2022One of 250 copies of a ‘Special’ and signed first edition of Ian Fleming’s 'On Her Majesty’s Secret Service' is shown here.
Victorian game formed by single sheet of paper
31 January 2022Described as being a little fragile but otherwise good, this Victorian transformation game was drawn on both sides of a single sheet of cut and folded paper.
London exhibition lots join worldwide adventures at sale
31 January 2022A handsome group of eight volumes commemorating the Great Exhibition of 1851 sold in Exeter had been presented to one of its commissioners, England’s serial Prime Minister, William Ewart Gladstone.
It’s a Harry Potter shocker at Heritage
24 January 2022Bidding on an exceptionally fine, virtually mint first edition of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone offered in the special Firsts into Film section of a December 9-10 sale opened at $75,000.
A Rackham wonderland at Sotheby's online auction
24 January 2022Offered at Sotheby’s (26/20/13.9% buyer’s premium) in an online sale that ran until December 1 under the title of The Fantasy World of Arthur Rackham was a collection of 31 original ink and watercolour artworks by the artist from the collection of American photographer Shirley Carter Burden (1908-89).
British and Irish book auctions: January 25-February 3, 2022
24 January 2022Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.
Pickwick parts add up to £40,000
24 January 2022Superb set of the Dickens classic was painstakingly assembled as originally issued
British and Irish book auctions: January 18-31, 2022
17 January 2022Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.
Story told of fables over the ages
17 January 2022Original French text, translated by Caxton, then illustrated by 1930s engravings
Curious but costly world view
17 January 2022In Rodney Shirley’s monumental study of 'The Mapping of the World… 1472-1700', the very first entry is a simple, circular woodcut known as a ‘T-O’ map, one in which the continents of Asia, Europe and Africa are very simply shown as named segments.
Books and works on paper auction calendar, January 11-31, 2022
10 January 2022Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.
Hooke passes sale examination
10 January 2022Copy of ‘most influential work in the history of microscopy’ surfaces in Chicago saleroom.
Worlds of difference in a saleroom
10 January 2022Two very different lots from a November 10 sale held by Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) are noted here.
Remembering Eric Hosking
10 January 2022The undoubted star of the November 24 sale at Tennants (20% buyer’s premium) was the early 15th century folding almanac, or girdle book, that took £95,000.
Time to launch the haggis!
10 January 2022In a world in which American superhero comics featuring Superman, Batman and other characters regularly sell for substantial six and seven-figure sums, it is really quite refreshing to be reminded of more modestly priced British rarities.
On the trail of the Baskervilles hound
03 January 2022Single page was used as a promotion for this classic Conan Doyle work.
Jobs letter is only one in his hand
03 January 2022A single-page letter sent on the day before Steve Jobs’ 19th birthday to a close school friend, Tim Brown, sold for $400,000 (£292,825) in New York.
The Wright map that plots a route to £365,000
20 December 2021A copy of Richard Hakluyt’s 'The Principal Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation' takes a six-figure sum at Devon sale.
Kepler masterpiece leads New York auction boasting a string a of six-figure results
20 December 2021A Christie’s New York (25/20/14.5% buyer’s premium) online timed sale achieved six-figure bids for no fewer than eight lots and very high prices for a great many others while running up an impressive and premium-inclusive total of close on $4.75m (£3.45m).
Hindu legends and real life
20 December 2021Modestly estimated at $3000-5000, a richly illustrated manuscript that presents in two finely bound folio volumes a pictorial record of the ‘Costumes et Plantes de L’Hindoustan’ made $80,000 (£58,395) in a New York auction.