Auctioneers

I have frequently locked horns with auction houses over their increasing postage costs.

Prior to the Poisons and Pharmacy Act of 1908, there was no legal requirement that a bottle containing poison should carry a warning.

Most Tudor and Stuart embroidered bindings that have survived from the 16th and 17th century cover Bibles, prayerbooks, and other devotional texts.

The McClure Arctic Expedition of 1850 was one of the Franklin rescue missions but ended up with the ironic fate of getting trapped themselves.

The final tranche of items from the Tony Chapman collection of pewter offered at Bishop & Miller of Stowmarket on June 19 included this capacious Victorian lidded jug once owned by Charles Dickens (1812-70).

The list of Polar exploration ships once lost but now rediscovered grew in number recently when it was announced the Quest had been located.

The last Jean-Jacques Rousseau herbarium in private hands came for sale at Ader in Paris on June 17.

June 2, 1878, began as a normal day in the varied life of the German artist Adolph von Menzel.

This recently discovered example of the iconic Bauhaus tea-infuser, designed by Marianne Brandt in 1924, on offer at Lempertz on May 15 for €200,000, was knocked down to the Hamburg Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe (Museum for Art and Industry) for €260,000 (£222,220).