Auctioneers

Showing little sign of their huge popularity slowing down, Star War figures made a significant contribution to a two-day TV and film-related auction.

Refugee artist provided first-hand experience of cutting edge style

Novelty biscuit tin toys delivered a number of tasty sale successes for South Yorkshire auction house BBR (15% buyer’s premium).

It is not just Star Wars figures or film posters bringing the big bucks.

Widely varying plans outlining a faraway harbour and a slice of rural Yorkshire bring saleroom surprises

Combining scholarly, decorative and evocative appeal, cameos and intaglios are a highly collectable area of the antiquities market.

While the achievement of Manchester City players in winning three titles in consecutive seasons – with a treble – is certainly admirable, spare a thought for Tom Wilson, a footballer of a much earlier era.

This pair of Bow porcelain figures of a cockerel and a hen sold for £7200 (plus 25% buyer’s premium) at Dore & Rees in Frome.

Despite its many shortcomings in terms of accuracy and reliability, the flintlock Long Land Pattern smoothbore musket – or Brown Bess to give it its more familiar nickname – remained in use from 1722 until the introduction of the percussion cap in 1838.

The team at the freshly re-branded Harper Field were in fine form for the opening of its brand new saleroom earlier this month.

Artefacts hailing from a vast geographical area come together in west London saleroom

Fabrics, costumes and theatre set designer turned to painting when her work was destroyed by a bomb

Illustrious names feature under portraits in a book about flying heroes from the Second World War

Roseberys’ (25% buyer’s premium) sale of Antiquities, Islamic and Indian Arts on April 28 – which included the 13th century Mamluk manuscript on astronomy pictured on the front page of ATG No 2592 sold for a surprise £140,000 – also boasted this striking 12in (30cm) marble architectural roundel.

These two archival prints of David Bowie dressed in a striped bodysuit he wore during the 1973 Aladdin Sane tour were part of Chiswick Auctions’ (25% buyer’s premium) sale of 19th and 20th Century Photographs on May 31.

A look ahead to some of the many stand-out items on offer at auctions this summer

This classic example of Venetian vedute was taken to a multi-estimate £34,000 at Gardiner Houlgate (22% buyer’s premium) in Corsham.

A 1954 edition of 'The Mousetrap' play script offered on June 6 at the Cotswold Auction Company (24% buyer’s premium) was inscribed by the author “For James Grout on our 6th birthday, Agatha Christie”.

With the National Portrait Gallery about to reopen, ATG takes a look at exhibition and auctions on the theme