Collectables

Account of a double killing in 19th century Norwich heads a look at two-day auction.

Shown below are the frontispiece and title-page of Newes from the East-Indies..., a 1638 account by William Bruton of his travels in ‘Bengalla’.

The first tranche of a private collection of predominantly Far Eastern maps and charts sold for more than £500,000 at Reeman Dansie and included a house record.

Just a little less famous than Fry’s 'Five Boys' image is the illustration by Tom Browne of a multi-class group outside a sweetshop with the line from 'Troilus and Cressida: One touch of Nature makes the whole World kin'.

Variety was certainly in evidence in a West Sussex sale, where the teenage journal of a young stained-glass maker, two broadside ballads and an illustrated dummy for 'Down with Skool!' all brought much higher than predicted bids.

It is the practice of one US saleroom to publish what are called ‘starting bids’ rather than an estimate range in its catalogues.

Signed by its author to the title-page, a 1939 first of TS Eliot’s 'Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats' sold for £4300 in a Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) auction.

Bearing a modest estimate of £50-75 but sold instead at £800 by Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood (23% buyer’s premium) on September 4 was a copy of 'Women’s Suffrage: a Short History of a Great Movement' (1912) by that renowned campaigner for women’s political rights, Millicent Garrett Fawcett.

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions.

Until electricity became commonplace in homes, the power source of choice for the gramophone was a spring motor that required frequent winding. One unusual solution to silent interludes at the dinner dance was to power the device by hot air.

This 9ct Rolex Tudor wristwatch below was presented by the Northern Irish FA to forward Derek Dougan, known by his nickname ‘The Doog’.

The biggest literary impression in a recent Shrewsbury sale that combined medals and militaria with well over 200 lots of books and ephemera was made by poets – famous and otherwise.

On October 12 Auction Team Breker in Cologne is holding a sale dedicated to antique office equipment. Among the distinctive pieces on offer is this Arithmomètre from 1865 guided at €3000-5000.

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions.