Latest News Articles by Tom Derbyshire
Winston Churchill's thanks for kippers and other memorabilia up at auction
22 May 2017Certain topics or people are so popular with collectors that they virtually become a market in themselves. Take Sir Winston Churchill for instance.
Soviet WW2 air ace medals soar to £120,000 in London sale
22 May 2017Lot 1234 made it count for London auction house Dix Noonan Webb despite lurking towards the back of an extensive two-day sale.
Roman statues used for Jamaican toga parties now in London auction
16 May 2017Fancy holding ‘Ides of March’ toga parties in your luxury Jamaican villa with original Roman statues dotted around the swimming pool for the authentic touch? American couple Douglas and Diene Cooper made that fantasy reality.
Lord Ashcroft buys Merchant Navy George Cross for Imperial War Museum public display
11 May 2017Lord Ashcroft’s superb collection of medals on public display at the Imperial War Museum in London has grown even larger thanks to a George Cross bought at auction.
Put your feet up on furniture with Billy Connolly comedy value
10 May 2017You would expect a comedian like Billy Connolly to buy furniture as colourful and outrageous as he can be. Now you have the opportunity to buy for yourself some of the migraine-inducing items from his Scottish holiday home.
Writing table helps to look for a Muriel Spark of inspiration
10 May 2017Suffering from writer’s block? Maybe the solution is to feel inspired by those who have gone on to success. Working on your next best-seller using Muriel Spark’s table might help.
Austin pedal cars power to thousands at auctions
09 May 2017For classic car collectors, a genuine ‘barn find’ to restore is the holy grail: a cobwebbed, dust-covered vehicle which has lain undisturbed for many, many years and is calling out for a restoration project.
Berenice Abbott New York photos on sale in same city
08 May 2017The largest group of photographs from Berenice Abbott (1898-1991) to come on the market since the Museum of the City of New York deaccessioned its duplicates in 2002 is offered in Heritage Auctions’ photographs sale on May 18-19.
Family medal group at auction shows how torpedoes transformed naval warfare
05 May 2017The First World War signals the start of ‘modern warfare’ for most military historians. It was when factors such as mass mobilisations, conscription, railways, machine guns, aeroplanes and gas attacks really came into force with devastating results.
Muhammad Ali gloves are latest boxing boost for auctioneer Graham Budd
04 May 2017No offence to Neil Diamond, a highly respected singer, but if you are a 12-year-old boy then memorabilia linked to him is not likely to be top of your present list. Fortunately, the other gift was a pair of boxing gloves owned by Muhammad Ali.
Uncovered documents up at auction reveal more about Bristol slave traders
03 May 2017The uncomfortable but inescapable fact that a lot of Britain’s wealth was based on business fuelled by slavery was underlined recently by the case of Colston Hall in Bristol.
Car’s the star in extension tale at Suffolk auction
02 May 2017It wasn’t so much a Road to Damascus moment for Edward Crichton but more the road back to Bury St Edmunds, a car journey that provided the Lacy Scott & Knight auctioneer with much-needed think time.
Debut medals sale for new Baldwin’s unit
02 May 2017Networking is far more than a good chinwag. As Baldwin’s of St James’s medal specialist Mark Smith explains, it can also be good business.
Church prayers answered at auction as rare US double eagle coin soars
28 April 2017‘In God we trust’ goes the phrase. It had a double meaning when an American church sold a rare 19th century coin with a result no doubt causing more than a few hallelujahs.
Ashes memorabilia at auction catches attention in cricket collecting field
28 April 2017Cricket can be a confusing game, full of ins and outs, stopping for lunch and tea and rain, with five-day games that can still end in a draw.
Stamford estate of play a year later
28 April 2017Just over a year since its launch, Stamford Auction Rooms is staging its first estate sale on May 27.
London coin dealer expands with series of appointments including ex-Spink specialist
27 April 2017Coin dealership Coincraft has welcomed four new members of staff and launched a new website.
Ship figureheads lead the way to auction discoveries
26 April 2017Poor old Christopher Columbus. Fair enough, he ended up with a country, part of a US state name and an Ohio state capital named after him, but it is the United States of America, not to mention South and North America, that endured.
Brunel and an older form of Great Western rail frustration
25 April 2017Delays and overspends on the Great Western route out of London are frustrating but letters up for auction on April 29 reveal that things didn’t always go smoothly even for the brilliant engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel.