Auctioneers

A musical manuscript at the centre of a row over whether it was handwritten by Ludwig van Beethoven or a copyist has failed to sell at an auction at Sotheby’s.

Besides the danger of a dog bite, delivering the mail is not generally seen as a perilous business. However, as a presentation sword up at auction in London shows, on occasion it can be a matter of life or death.

A small and previously unrecorded portrait of Lord Nelson sold for £14,000 at Charles Miller’s latest Maritime and Scientific sale in West Kensington.

An auction of the designer wardrobe of a socialite at Peter Wilson’s Nantwich saleroom attracted more than 100 people and raised £27,000.

Like the Statue of Liberty or Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower is symbolic of the skyline of one of the world’s great cities. The ultimate Parisian souvenir, sold in model form to tourists round the world, what would you give to have a piece of the real thing to take home?

Christie’s auctions of Modern British & Irish art this week helped lift their annual total in this category to £68m, the highest figure the firm has ever posted.

The War of the Worlds 1953 British quad film poster is regarded as a scarce must-have in that collecting market.

A handwritten poem by Anne Frank has sold at auction in the Netherlands at €140,000 (£119,000).

East Bristol Auctions is holding a Lego sale next month. With more than 300 lots, the firm claims the auction will be the world’s first dedicated Lego toy sale.

West London auction firm Matthew Barton has set a house record with the sale of a Nepalese bronze after it was hammered down at £85,000.

Specialist sales of antiquities in London kick off at Bonhams later this month with a 192-lot auction in New Bond Street on November 30.

The latest Asian art sale at Woolley & Wallis generated a total of £3.6m and posted some of the strongest prices at auction in the UK regions this year.

Christie’s Education, the educational arm of the auction house, plans to relocate to the firm’s South Kensington saleroom.

Norfolk’s TW Gaze is expanding its saleroom after buying the freehold of the land.

A large-scale sculpture by Dame Barbara Hepworth led Sotheby’s evening sale of Modern British art tonight.

A rare dodo skeleton – the first almost complete specimen in nearly a century – has sold for £280,000 at auction.

A button reading ‘Equality’ and commemorating Booker T Washington’s dinner with President Theodore Roosevelt in the White House is included in Heritage Auction’s upcoming Americana sale.

Lewes saleroom Gorringe’s will hold all its auctions under one roof from January.