US

Freeman’s September 21 Books and Manuscripts auction, in Pennsylvania is led by an ‘extremely rare’ first edition of 'New Englands First Fruits' (estimate $20,000-30,000), a 1643 account of Puritan evangelisation in New England.

Sold at $440,000 (£371,000), the most expensive lot in a three-day auction at Heritage (25% buyer’s premium) was a logbook kept on the B29 Superfortress bomber that dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in 1945.

A well-preserved and boxed version of the 1960s Japanese Masudaya Machine Man robot was the highest flyer in the Morphy Auctions (20% buyer’s premium) August 9-10 toys and collectables sale in Denver, Pennsylvania.

Bertoia’s sale of the collection of Bill and Stevie Weart will be held over two days in Vineland, New Jersey, on September 8-9.

Doyle in New York is holding a Fine Art auction on September 14 offering a selection of affordable paintings, prints and sculpture that spans the late 19th through the 20th centuries.

Massachusetts sale includes elaborate examples of early needlework from across the Atlantic

A rediscovered painting by the German Symbolist and Munich Secessionist artist Franz von Stuck (1863-1928) is to be offered by Soulis Auctions in Lone Jack, (suburban Kansas City) Missouri, on September 23.

Making its third appearance at auction in almost 60 years, the 34pp autograph manuscript of Arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter’, a tale from The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes collection of his stories that first appeared in The Strand magazine in 1893, has sold for $280,000 (£236,090) in Dallas.

The latest sale of Clocks, Watches, & Scientific Instruments held by Bonhams Skinner (25% buyer’s premium) included one of perhaps only 50 surviving Tornek-Rayville TR-900 stainless steel dive watches.

English and Continental ‘country house’ offerings are rare in the US but not gone forever

During the administration of Rutherford Hayes, who served as the 19th President of the US from 1877-81, the White House commissioned a dinner service from the Haviland factory in Limoges.

The sale at Nye & Company in Bloomfield, New Jersey, on September 7-8 includes Modern and Contemporary art and sculpture from the David and Laura Finn family collection.

The sales at Poster Auctions International (20% buyer’s premium) in New York regularly include a selection of examples by Alphonse Mucha and its most recent auction was no exception.

Sabena was mainland Europe’s first airline to offer a transatlantic jet service via Boeing 707 and this design by Gaston Van den Eynde is one of a series that he designed to herald the Belgian airline’s jet age.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, the French military could feel pretty proud of itself. The dashing style and spirit of their forces in the 19th century often inspired other nations to create copycat units.

Both categories are particularly notable as Mark and Marjorie Allen lots sell in Pennsylvania

US collector tells us why he’s so keen to open a museum displaying his purchases

Collectables firm JG Autographs has started to hold auctions, with the first running online until August 23.