Collectables

Australasia provided the talking points and two main buyers at the recent Tennants (20% buyer’s premium) specialist sale in the Yorkshire Dales.

As in its September auction, a double-page Frank Bellamy artwork featuring ‘Heros the Spartan’ proved a star turn in the latest Comic Book Auctions (19% buyer’s premium) online sale on thesaleroom.com.

A story of extraordinary peacetime gallantry of a Cumbrian seaman turned coalminer was at the heart of a group of medals, photographs and press cuttings offered at Reeman Dansie (20% buyer’s premium) at Colchester on November 28.

This Victorian mother-of-pearl and abalone shell card case is carved with a portrait of George Lord Byron, the most flamboyant and notorious of the major English Romantic poets.

Cutting up examples for new artworks can be controversial – but here is a case for the defence

The leading contenders in the December 12 General Election are struggling to land any meaningful blows on each other, despite being more than happy to be photographed in boxing rings.

The huge and ongoing task of cataloguing thousands of cigarette cards and other ephemera from a deceased collector’s home – he had walls pasted with beer mats instead of wallpaper – paid off for Bristol auctioneer Gavin Aplin.

Hornby Dublo collectors fought spirited battles for clockwork rarities at Duggleby Stephenson’s (18.75% buyer’s premium) York sale.

A Cecil Beaton sketch of Christian Dior working in his studio in Paris sold for £5200 (estimate £500-700) as part of the estate of society dress designer Ian Thomas (1929-93).

The impact of institutions on the collector-dominated market in fans was witnessed when the best-seller at a dedicated Tennants (20% buyer’s premium) auction went to a museum.

Well placed in Tyne & Wear to receive a number of miners’ safety lamps from the old Durham and Northumberland coalfields, Boldon Auction Galleries (17.5% buyer’s premium) was presented with something of a mystery in the form of the lamp pictured here.

Nelson’s naval heroics earned him many fans – and among the many souvenirs they bought to mark his greatness were fans of the cooling variety.

Selling at some 20 times the estimate, a 19th century mahogany-cased music box was the surprise success at Batemans’ (20% buyer’s premium) sale at Stamford on October 5.

Renovations at hotel venue mean Etc Fairs will have a smaller space but only for a short while.