Collectables

The first civilian Victoria Cross of just five to be awarded has sold for an auction record hammer price of £750,000 at London saleroom Noonans.

The Lacy Scott & Knight Music, Film & Sport Memorabilia auction on September 16 included over 40 lots consigned by singer and 1970s rock band Cockney Rebel frontman Steve Harley.

Two albums of photographs taken by fellow cricketer and friend pitch in at four-figure sum.

Inscribed to her husband and fellow poet, Ted Hughes, the dedication copy of the first and only collection of Sylvia Plath’s verses to be published in her lifetime, The Colossus and other Poems, sold for a record £75,000.

Examples from the UK and Commonwealth featuring the late queen make mementoes.

The latest in a series of auctions to draw on the private library of one of the more prominent antiquarian book dealers of his generation, William S Reese (1955-2018), ran from September 1-14 at Christie’s New York (26/20/14.5% buyer’s premium).

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

Davidson Auctions in Annadale, New South Wales, Australia, is dispersing the contents of the Leuralla Toy and Railway Museum.

The sales at Stride & Son (21.6% buyer’s premium inc VAT) in Chichester on September 1-2 included a trio of avidly contested items, each a rarity in three highly specialised collecting areas.

Even if you do not know the name Bob McGinnis (b.1926) you will probably be familiar with his work.

Nutcracker collector and author aims to open a museum in his home country.

Revered in the world of railway modelling, the name James Stanley Beeson (1906-90), better known as Stan Beeson, attracted well-heeled collectors and specialist dealers to Tennants’ (22% buyer’s premium) sale on July 27.

Major sales marked the opening days of two London fairs, Firsts: London’s Rare Book Fair and Tribal Art London.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

Bid to £9500 rather than the suggested £150-200 was a copy of the first, and possibly only edition ever seen at auction of William Knight’s A Concordance Axiomaticall…

Heritage is holding a Beatles memorabilia sale in Dallas on September 24.

Doubling its mid-estimate to sell at £50,000, one of the top lots in a sale of September 7 was Paulo Forlani’s Il Disegno del discoperto della nova Franza…

This camera script produced for the ‘Waldorf Salad’ episode from the second series of Fawlty Towers was offered by East Bristol Auctions (19% buyer’s premium) in a timed online sale that ended on August 23,

In 1902 the author Booker T Washington sent a typed and handwritten letter to the Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie regarding his recently published work.