Heritage Auctions

If you remember the American Football mania that first hit the UK in the mid-1980s when coverage started on Channel 4, then you will certainly recall ‘The Refrigerator’.

Only around five examples of this rare ‘Big Beat’ concert poster are thought to exist. It advertises a 1958 tour by Rock and Roll promoter Alan Freed, whose photo appears at the top above the 16 different 1950s top musical acts (all also pictured).

An elaborate late-19th century engraved rock crystal, parcel-gilt, gemset and enamelled silver figural centrepiece made c.1880 by the Viennese firm of Hermann Ratzersdorfer was the catalogue cover lot of the Heritage (25 /20/12.5% buyer’s premium) silver and vertu auction in Dallas.

Spread over four days, April 30-May 3, a comics and artwork auction held by Heritage (20% buyer’s premium) in Dallas raised over $7.5m with every lot sold.

Heritage Auctions in Dallas, Texas, is consolidating its three offices into one large global headquarters to incorporate offices, salerooms and cataloguing space.

For their first appearance at the 55,000-seater Shea Stadium in Queens, New York, in 1965, The Beatles needed no promotion. At the height of Beatlemania in the US, the venue sold out in minutes.

Offered without a reserve, a job lot of “low grade” comics dating from the 1940s-50s ended up selling for £1200 in a Comic Book Auctions (19% buyer’s premium) timed sale on thesaleroom.com.

This rare poster for 'The Invisible Man', the 1933 Universal Studios horror film, realised a hammer price of $152,000 (£132,175) in Heritage Auctions’ Movie Poster sale in Dallas.

Comprising essays by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay, all of which were published under the same pen name, ‘Publius’, The Federalist: A Collection of Essays, Written in Favour of the New Constitution… is a key American contribution to political theory.

A selection of upcoming entertainment lots at auctions ranging from the Fab Four in New York to James Bond in London and Tommy Cooper in Stockport.

Edged weapons from the East continue to feature regularly among the top lots in auctions across the world. Awareness of the rich array of culturally-significant weapons to be found in Western collections has grown as internet technology reaches a new international audience.

Two spectacular early-19th century British presentation sabres have turned up in the salerooms recently, one in London and the other in Munich.

Heritage now conducts a monthly online-only auction titled Fine & Decorative Arts. The February 13 sale includes two typical oil on panel works by the French cat painter Jules Gustave Leroy (1856-1921).