US

Just one other example of Mary Shelley’s famous tale has made more at auction

Maps and views of San Francisco were among the principal attractions of an April 21 sale held by local auction house PBA Galleries (25/20% buyer’s premium) to disperse the first portion of the Charles Fraccia Collection.

A pair of revolvers presented to American Civil War general and later US president Ulysses S Grant soldfor $4.4m (£3.61m) or $5.17m with premium.

Copy printed in Boston in 1744 and now offered in Chicago was defective but a real rarity

An inscribed copy of F Scott Fitzgerald’s 'The Great Gatsby' was the most expensive purchase in a held by Potter & Potter (20% buyer’s premium).

TEFAF New York and Eye of the Collector are both cross-collecting fairs with an emphasis on Contemporary art but staged in historic buildings and also offering antiques.

Man Ray’s 'Le Violon d’Ingres' has set a new record for a photograph, selling for $10.5m (£8m) at Christie’s in New York.

Estimated at just $200-300, this folding map of the island of Antigua proved rather more expensive than expected.

In Massachusetts, auction firm Skinner (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) held the first of a series of sales given over to the carpet collection of Jim Dixon with an online session from April 25-May 6 and a live sale on May 4.

Underlining the recovery of the post-covid art market, at the very top-end at least, the latest series of 20th and 21st century auctions in New York posted a record total for a flagship auction fortnight.

Auction houses will no longer be legally required to publicise guarantees on artworks sold in New York City when a repeal of business regulations goes ahead next month.

Christie’s flagship sales of Modern and Contemporary art in New York produced a running total of $1.25bn (£1.02m) including premium from four evening auctions last week.

An historically significant document dating from 1785 and a previously unrecorded campaign handbill concerning the election that saw Thomas Jefferson become the third US president were highlights of a February 17 sale at Freeman’s (26/20/12% buyer’s premium).

Alchemical work is best-seller as Vishniac lots create a valuable mix in the saleroom

Strawser auction group holds a three-day sale series in Indiana on May 25 & 27-28.

Two upcoming lots at US book auctions.

In what was the auction house’s most successful sale ever in financial terms, and one that boasted a 97% selling rate, a March 4 sale at Potter & Potter (20% buyer’s premium) was led at $65,000 (£49,240) by a 'Narrative of Colonel Ethan Allen’s Captivity from the Time of his Being Taken by the British, near Montreal… in 1775, to the Time of his Exchange…in May 1778'.

If social media makes you feel like Big Brother is watching you, and if truth occasionally feels stranger than fiction, then like many bibliophiles you might be exploring books that suggest models for society and the role of the individual.

The six lots described here are drawn from a hugely successful sale of comics and comic art held in Dallas by Heritage (20% buyer’s premium) over four days, from April 7-10.