Collectables

One of the earliest surviving incandescent light bulbs, made by the English physicist Sir Joseph Wilson Swan (1828-1914) in the 1870s, sold for £7500 (plus 25% buyer’s premium) at Bonhams’ sale titled Instruments of Science and Technology.

This linocut comes from one of just 30 copies of Rigby Graham’s 'The Casquets… the most dangerous Channel Islands' issued by the Brewhouse Press in 1972.

The annual London Writing Equipment Show at the Holiday Inn in Bloomsbury on Sunday October 7 will be a sell-out, says coorganiser Jeremy Collingridge.

Following on from last week’s 19th and 20th century literature round-up, this second selection focuses on earlier works sold in London and New York during the summer.

Our round-up of British and Irish book sales coming up from September 25-October 6, 2018.

The relaunched British Art Fair opened with a flurry of sales at its new London venue, the Saatchi Gallery.

Bigger could mean better at the UK’s largest coin fair this year. Celebrating its 40th year, Coinex 2018 is in a larger venue and has more exhibitors.

The Old Masters section of Doyle’s auction in New York on October 31 will include a portrait by the French 19th century artist Eugène Delacroix.

For most enthusiasts of Airfix’s plastic construction kits, it was the company’s dramatic box artwork that caught the eye when choosing the next model to make.

There is a full load of arms fairs this month including the Antiques Arms Fair at Olympia on September 29 (see Dealers’ Diary, ATG No 2359) and the now triannual Kempton Vintage and Classic Arms Fair. Launched at Kempton Park Racecourse last year, it followed the demise in 2016 of the specialist event held for many years at the National Shooting Centre in Bisley.

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak produced about 200 of their ground-breaking Apple 1 computers for Paul Terrell, owner of The Byte Shop in Mountain View, California. It was one of the first personal computer stores in the world.

An album of 40 albumen images by pioneering photographer John Thomson with direct appeal to the market for early depictions of the Orient was the outstanding star at Hartleys (17.5% buyer’s premium).

A book of specimen banknotes printed for locations across the world has set a house record for Tring Market Auctions (17.5% buyer’s premium) by selling for £205,000.

Bonhams’ September 25 Exploration and Travel sale in New York opens with the 80-lot Joe Fitzsimmons library devoted to works on Antarctic Exploration.

Real rarities and record breakers are among items that feature in this first of a couple of reviews of more literary lots from the wealth of summer sales. Here the focus is principally on works of the last 200 years or so – and includes such diverse characters as Hugh the Heron and the Invisible Man.

Accounts of wars and skirmishes in the southern states of North America and Mexico were one notable feature of an August 23 sale held in San Francisco.

Our round-up of British and Irish book sales coming up from September 18-27, 2018.