Hansons

This Yongzheng (1722-35) mark and period Eight Immortals bowl sold for £26,000 at the Hansons (20% buyer’s premium) auction in Teddington last month.

“Something awful. Never witnessed anything like it before. After a bombardment of a week the Germans mounted their own trenches and the infantry reckon that every German had a machine gun…”

A briefly catalogued 20th century painting, spotted by bidders as the work of the Ontario-born painter David Milne (1882-1953), raced to £38,000 at auction in Teddington. It had come for sale from Eaton Cottage in Thames Ditton, Surrey, with an estimate of just £100-200.

With tripartite appeal to football fans of England, Wales and – most importantly as it turned out – of Millwall FC, a historic shirt was a winner at Hansons’ ( 20% buyer’s premium) sporting sale.

The Fish Footman puppet is among the most sought after of the entire back catalogue of Pelham Puppets.

A single collection of 490 pieces of Moorcroft dating from the 1890s to modern limited editions offered an overall view of the market when sold at Hansons (20% buyer’s premium).

This 19th century half-length portrait right depicts the Anglo-Irish soldier and politician William Carr Beresford (1768-1854) who fought alongside The Duke of Wellington.

While items of Queen Victoria’s clothing are not a rare sight at auction, a collection on offer in Derbyshire proved of high enough quality to attract bidding from a world-famous collection of royal dress.

Pocket guide to pleasure stimulates in Staffs and saucy memoir excites bidders in Yorks.

The Design sale at Christie’s New York (25/20% buyer’s premium) on December 13 included the return to the auction room of one of the famous series of electroplated teapots made by James Dixon & Sons, Sheffield, c.1879, to designs by Christopher Dresser.

The typical Georgian silver coffee pot is one of the great bargains of 21st century antiques collecting.

Part toy, part biscuit tin, the crossover appeal of a 1929 Huntley & Palmers product helped it to star at Hansons’ (20% buyer’s premium) five-day 2100-lot marathon antiques and collectors sale.

Code locked in a briefcase for two decades, a finely preserved, 1997 first issue of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was finally released this summer after being delivered by its Lancashire owners into the hands of a Derbyshire saleroom.

Dominating a grand lecture hall of one of France’s oldest universities is a classical fresco of the god Apollo and the Muses on Parnasses, created at the turn of the 20th century by French artist Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret (1852-1929).

Two early handmade Valentines from the Judith Howard collection of mourning jewellery, greeting cards andand other ephemera drew demand at Hansons latest sale at Bishton Hall, Staffordshire.

A collection of 18th and 19th century mementoes of love and death – “the likes of which we are unlikely to ever see again” according to specialist Eric Knowles – brought a white-glove success at Hansons (20% buyer’s premium).

The catalogue description correctly read ‘Art Nouveau silver powder bowl by Gilbert Marks, hallmark London 1900, weight approx 8.79oz, 273.4gms, decorated with stylised thistles repousse’.

The first Olympic gold medal won by a British woman in an individual swimming event has been bought by her home town for public display.