Auctioneers

A bronze figure of the fierce four-armed deity Mahakala that was being used as a doorstop in a Gloucestershire cottage sold for £85,000 at Mallams’ Chinese art sale in Cheltenham.

In our weekend series, Antiques Trade Gazette brings you a selection of quotes from dealers, auctioneers, collectors and others – from inventive anglers and atomic bombs to those collectors who are getting cannier all the time.

John Lennon’s letter to the Queen returning his MBE could make its £60,000 for the vendor who acquired it for only £10.

Anthony Pratt, managing director of The Canterbury Auction Galleries, has been portrayed as The Knight from the Canterbury Tales in a mural unveiled earlier this month in the Kent city’s high street.

Sotheby’s has acquired the The Mei Moses Art Indices, a database and analytics tool for tracking the art market and comparing its performance against other assets.

A new record for an empty English medicine bottle was set by BBR Auctions in Elsecar, North Yorkshire when a Victorian flask of ‘Dr Sibley’s Solar Tincture’ took £8200.

Christie’s have appointed the former Metropolitan Museum curator Stijn Alsteens as international head of the Old Master drawings department.

Christie’s New York have announced the sale of more than 30 pieces of Chinese art from Osaka’s Fujita Museum which will be offered at auction next year.

The collection of the late Asian art valuer Richard Cole will be sold at auction next month.

A key which opened a life-jacket locker on the Titanic was one of the highlights of Henry Aldridge & Son’s auction last week.

It is not always the most obviously valuable coins that make the most at auction. Or even the ones with the highest original value. A humble Irish 20p dating from the relatively recent year of 1985 is a good case in point.

C&T Auctioneers will hold its first sale dedicated to mechanical, music scientific instruments and technical apparatus under its newly appointed specialist Laurence Fisher on November 2.

A near total sell-out greeted Sotheby’s sale of Indian miniatures from the Khosrovani-Diba collection offered as part of London’s Indian and Islamic art series.

A rare example of a Queen Anne 'Vigo' five-guinea gold coin has emerged at Essex auctioneers Boningtons. It will be offered at their sale in Epping on November 16 with an estimate of £200,000-250,000.

In our weekend series, Antiques Trade Gazette brings you a selection of quotes from dealers, auctioneers, collectors and others – from Far East fakes to rabbi paintings and what dealer Gordon Watson said after selling his collection.

An ornately decorated Rolls-Royce, which includes Rococo-style panels, a French ormolu clock and Elkington gilt bronze mounts, is one of the starring lots at Bonhams' upcoming Bond Street sale.

Webbs of Wilton, near Salisbury, are conducting a sale of paintings by three generations of the Benney family on November 2.

At just over 17in (42cm) high, the 1920s Wedgwood vase (shape 2465) is among the largest produced in the Fairyland Lustre range.

The excitement around the new polymer fivers, which were launched by the Bank of England last month, helped boost interest in new and old £5 notes for philatelic and numismatic specialists Spink.

Coalport porcelain, like that produced at Derby, is renowned for its quality and decoration, drawing inspiration from work produced at the celebrated Sèvres factory.