Collectables

Two men will appear in court in connection with the 2017 theft of rare books from a west London warehouse.

Christie’s marathon 12-hour auction of Indian jewellery and works of art from the Al Thani family held in New York included the finest collection of courtly weapons to come to auction in well over a generation.

Published in Venice in November 1494, a copy of Luca Pacioli’s 'Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proporzioni et proporzionalità…' offered in a recent US sale was granted the rare privilege in the book auction world of having a catalogue all of its own.

Beyond the Horizon was the title given to the remarkable Mopelia collection of atlases and travel books offered in a June 5 sale in London.

Top-seller at Richard Edmonds’ (20% buyer’s premium) latest specialist motoring accessories sale was a hanging lightbox proclaiming the virtues of Pratt’s Perfection Spirit.

Running up a total of over €2m on 600 lots, a smaller number than usual, the May 27 sale held by Ketterer Kunst (23/21% buyer’s premium) in Hamburg produced the book department’s best-ever results.

A rare signed ink and gouache image in which Tintin carves a makeshift propellor to replace that damaged by a forced landing of his aeroplane in the Soviet Union sold for $900,000 (£708,660) in a June 8-9 sale of European comic artworks held in the US.

Our listing of British and Irish book auctions taking place from July 2-13.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

From the 18th century onwards, the city of Birmingham was a major centre of the British gun-making industry.

The story of a woman who bound her chest with sacking and cotton, cut her hair and dyed her skin using furniture polish to get to the Western Front is one of the highlights at Norwich Book Fair.

This c.1800 flintlock pistol below by James Wilkinson, London, was used on packet ships to protect the General Post Office mail.

Topping by some way an offering of 300 pieces of jewellery at Lyon & Turnbull’s (25% buyer’s premium) Edinburgh sale was a Persian gold and niello decorated Esther Scroll holder.

Uncut and partially unopened, a truly exceptional presentation copy of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species… sold for a record $400,000 (£316,353) in a recent US sale.

A poet and dramatist, Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, was once considered by many to be the true author of Shakespeare’s plays.

‘Boxing Badgers’ is one of just two known occasions when the celebrated taxidermist Peter Spicer (1839-1935) ventured into the strange world of the anthropomorphic tableau.