Auctioneers

A selection of Indian Company School paintings is among the lots on offer at Bristol Auction Rooms next month.

Poor old Newark. A bit like Belgium and Poland over the centuries, in the English Civil War the English Midlands town ended up in the wrong place in wartime – stuck in the middle - as armies trampled back and forth across it or lay siege. The town’s misfortune is a coin collector’s gain, however, as the lozenge-shaped coins minted in Newark during the conflict have become familiar and fairly common visitors to the salerooms.

Christie’s has appointed Jonathan Stone and Tina Zonars to the positions of co-chairmen in the Asian art department.

Martians land in Surrey and terrorise much of southern England in tripedal war-machines equipped with death-rays before finally succumbing to terrestrial bacteria. That, put very simply, is the story line of HG Wells’ 1898 novel, ‘The War of the Worlds’, an apocalyptic vision that retains an iconic place in the realms of science fiction.

Among the lots at Bloomsbury Auctions’ upcoming sale, The Glory of Science, is ‘the first space selfie’.

When London’s Tottenham Court Road Underground station started its £400m refurb, one of the trickiest tasks was not the tracks, the signals, ticket office or any of the usual suspects. Instead, it was tackling 950 square metres of mosaics designed by one of the most celebrated of 20th century British artists.

Demand for Beatles memorabilia is always high, so for rarities in this collecting field the prices will naturally be hefty.

A collection of poetry to be sold at Tennants Auctioneers in Yorkshire includes some of the early works of Hobbit author JRR Tolkien.

The Bruton Museum in Somerset has bought a rare silver tankard at nearby saleroom Lawrences of Crewkerne.

A photographic portrait of Charles Darwin by Julia Margaret Cameron was among the lots drawing strong competition at Sotheby’s sale of works from one of the largest private collections of material relating to the great naturalist ever formed.

A museum in The Netherlands has bought a 3000-year-old ceremonial sword at a Christie’s auction. It had been found around 120 years ago in a peat bog.