Latest News Articles by Roland Arkell
Range of furnishings from Dorset manor add buzz to Crewkerne auction
14 February 2022The furniture and works of art sale at Crewkerne auction house Lawrences (25% buyer’ premium) on January 21 included a set of George II walnut seating furniture with an excellent provenance.
The ‘sweet tin’ shilling
14 February 2022The finest-known example of a New England shilling sold for £220,000 at Morton & Eden in London on November 26.
Church lots: Holy appropriate consignments come to saleroom
14 February 2022Ecclesiastic buildings can be the source of good secular antiques: typically items bequeathed in the distant past by parishioners for church use.
Bristol rose ryal sold at Timeline
14 February 2022In response to a decline in the wool trade, a shortage of bullion and the impact of the Wars of the Roses, English coinage was devalued on August 13, 1464.
The £1000 note sold for £32,000
14 February 2022This Bank of England £1000 note dated October 15, 1935, was issued under chief cashier Kenneth Oswald Peppiatt (1934-49).
Indian Mutiny VC sold at Spink
14 February 2022The 150th Victoria Cross ever awarded sold for £180,000 at London auction house Spink on July 29.
A costly Ploughman
14 February 2022The first tranche from a large collection of Irish banknotes assembled by the late Gus Mac Amhlaigh of Dublin sold by DNW on November 25 included red and orange Bank of Ireland £20 ‘specimen’ notes from the famous Ploughman series.
Honouring Antinous
14 February 2022A three-quarters-length bust of a bare-chested Antinous, the favourite of Hadrian, appears on this medallic coin minted in Mantinea, Arcadia, c.134AD.
Trinidad & Tobago in colour
14 February 2022The Trinidad & Tobago $1000 note, c.1914, is itself a rare beast but this example is a colour proof printed on two sheets by Thomas De La Rue.
‘A tiger in a fight’
14 February 2022Dix Noonan Webb set a record for a British army Victoria Cross on June 23.
Golf medal converted to a brooch more than triples estimate at Mullock’s
14 February 2022This 18ct gold and enamel medal was awarded to Reginald Arthur Whitcombe (1898-1957) for winning the 1936 Open Golf Championship of Ireland.
Welcoming Nelson's protégé Hoste at Morton & Eden
14 February 2022Nelson held his protégé Captain Sir William Hoste KCB (1780-1828) in high esteem.
Hird’s Elizabethan treasures set house record for Spink's coin department
14 February 2022Spink offered 52 coins from one of the ‘lost’ parcels of Alderman Horace Hird (1899-1973), former president of the Yorkshire Numismatic Society.
Una and the Lion coin turns head at St James’s Auctions
14 February 2022The most cherished coin from the reign of Victoria is the 1839 gold £5 piece by William Wyon.
Briot’s pattern unite
14 February 2022The sale at Sovereign Rarities on September 21 included this Charles I (1625-49), silver pattern unite (20 shillings) dated 1630.
Poster fast forwards London to 2026
14 February 2022A 1926 London Transport poster with artwork by Montague Birrell Black (1889-1964) imagining what the capital may look 100 years into the future was offered at Ewbank’s (25% buyer’s premium) in Woking on January 21.
A £5 cameo from George IV
14 February 2022Stamps specialist Harmers is a newcomer to London numismatic sales.
Victorian ‘composting’ toilet invented by rural vicar stars in our pick of five auction highlights sold this week
11 February 2022ATG’s weekly selection of items that caught bidders’ eyes includes a rare mahogany and cast iron ‘earth closet’ from 1873 designed to ‘return waste to the soil’.
Just what the doctors ordered: a healthy infusion of $10,000
07 February 2022An 18th century teapot was among the stand out items in the sale of the collection of doctors-turned-dealers Wynn A Sayman Antiques.
Reduced returns for Duleep marble
07 February 2022One of the highlights of the April 2007 London Islamic sale series had been this 2ft 4in (74cm) high white marble bust of Maharajah Duleep Singh by neoclassical sculptor John Gibson.