Harper Field

Tom Mason’s collecting bug began when his father sent him postcards and gifts from places where he was posted during the Second World War. By his early teens he had started his own collection of military memorabilia and began what would become a lifetime obsession with the American Civil War. Pen pals in the US and Canada helped him search for relics.

Scantily catalogued as a Georgian/Victorian micro-mosaic plaque depicting a dove, a classic example of the pieces produced by Italian craftsmen and beloved by wealthy Britons on the Grand Tour was equally appreciated by bidders at Stroud Auctions (18% buyer’s premium).

Playing cards from two recent provincial sales are featured here – five examples from a 250-lot, single-owner collection offered in Gloucestershire, and a single pack from a Worcestershire sale.

It was a case of best feet forward at Stroud Auctions (18% buyer’s premium) when a pair of Georgian ladies’ embroidered shoes with cut steel buckles and leather soles was offered.

Bearing later Georgian or Victorian embossed decoration, this 13¾in (35cm) diameter, 22oz silver charger, below, was a much earlier work.

What seems to have been an overdue clear-out at Monmouth Trading Standards department led to half a dozen lots of imperial weights and measures being consigned to Stroud Auctions (18% buyer’s premium).

Ephemera, photos and, remarkably, a penguin egg relating to Captain Robert Scott’s ill-fated 'Terra Nova' Expedition to the Antarctic in 1910 were eagerly contested in the room, on the phone and online at Stroud Auction Rooms’ latest sale.

A Distinguished Flying Cross medal group offered at Stroud Auctions (18% buyer’s premium) on November 7-8 underlines the sometimes rudimentary nature of the embyonic early war in the air.

Early British army uniforms were the highlight of an extensive single-owner militaria collection amassed by a long-standing Nottinghamshire family which was offered at Stroud Auctions.

Stroud Auction Rooms has moved into a grade-II listed property in the Gloucestershire market town while securing a second site for future expansion.

A reminder of the dramatic drop in demand over recent decades for Victorian landscapes was evident in Gloucestershire where two such oils by Sidney Richard Percy (1822-86) went under the hammer.

A selection of stand-out lots from auctions in west London, Mayfair and Gloucestershire.

We asked two auctioneers about a universally thorny issue: whether it's good business to charge buyers for leaving items they've bought beyond the stipulated deadline for collection.