Collectables

It is not often that you get the chance to bid for your very own circus. But auction house Roseberys is offering just that. A handmade model of a circus is among the remarkable circus-related items up at auction this autumn. Here ATG selects four highlights.

The Horlicks collection of Robert ‘Mouseman’ Thompson furniture was sold at Sworders auction yesterday for £236,000.

ATG’s selection of highlights sold at auctions held over the last seven days, including a rare 18th century Italian corkscrew and a Napoleonic officer’s coat.

The collection of photography pioneer and medical writer Alfred Swaine Taylor (1806-80) is to be offered at auction house Lacy Scott & Knight in Bury St Edmunds in October following the success of a first sale last year.

The Ephemera Society Summer Fair will return to a June date next year, in line with next summer’s series of London book and map fairs.

Specimen marble tops, micro-mosaics, plaster intaglios and marble neoclassical sculptures – objects such as these were typical purchases for the Grand Tourists who visited the sights of classical civilization in the 18th and 19th centuries. All regularly appear at auction.

A Beano annual, made before the famous character Dennis the Menace was introduced, is to be auctioned in Norfolk next week.

Railway-related items remain one of the staples of the collectables market, with rarity and links to locomotive history among the key factors determining demand. Here ATG selects a small group of items from the healthy supply of lots on offer at two auctions taking place this week.

Walking stick collectors have been in luck, with not one but two single owner collections up for grabs at auction this summer.

A group of museums, with the backing of film-maker James Cameron, has teamed up to buy artefacts from the wreck of the 'Titanic'.

A French 18th century 'betrothal' corkscrew was the highlight of the first in a series to disperse a single-owner collection of corkscrews in Wiltshire.

It’s déjà vu all over again… yes, we bring you another excellent and evocative Suffragette item of memorabilia up at auction in this, the centenary year of the signing of the Qualification of Women Act. In other words, votes for women in the UK – aged over 30, that is.

A watch, writing set and magnifying glass belonging to the controversial couple the Duke and Duchess of Windsor - the former King Edward VIII and wife Wallis Simpson - will be offered at auction this weekend.