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).