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Burdett whale tooth sets scrimshaw record in US sale

25 July 2017

In an August 2016 ATG wrote that the scrimshaw market had been in the doldrums but was showing signs of a return to buoyancy. Judging by the latest results from Massachusetts auction house Eldred’s, bidders are certainly prepared to push the boat out for the best examples.

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Getty Museum chooses Old Master drawings for biggest-ever acquisition

24 July 2017

Los Angeles’ J Paul Getty Museum has bought 16 Old Master drawings in its largest-ever purchase by value.

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Asian ship gun to ward off pirates fires the auction imagination

24 July 2017

This bronze Lantaka ship’s swivel gun/signal cannon is one of the antique firearms to be offered by Cordier Auction in a July 30 auction of more than 350 lots of militaria and firearms.

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All the world's a stage in Ohio sale of fairs memorabilia

24 July 2017

A sale entirely devoted to memorabilia from the world trade fairs and exhibitions is to be held by Grays Auctioneers in Cleveland, Ohio, on July 31.

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Children’s classics in the Vienna Secession avant garde

24 July 2017

A superb suite of the original ink and gouache drawings – one shown here – made by Carl Otto Czeschka to illustrate a 1908 edition of Die Niebelungen dem Deutschen Volke sold at $290,000 (£224,805) in a Sotheby’s New York (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) sale of June 6 called Important Design.

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No kidding: goat bank coins it in at US auction

24 July 2017

Multi-consignments from single-owner collections and a smorgasbord of different collecting categories provided bidders with a huge choice of vintage toys in specialist auctioneer Bertoia’s (20% buyer’s premium) sale on June 2-3.

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Thomas More not the merrier at the Tower

17 July 2017

Translated from a Paris version that had appeared earlier in that same year of 1535, an 8pp German newsletter giving an account of the execution of Thomas More sold for $11,500 (£9055) as part of the Eric Caren archive at Christie’s New York (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) on June 15.

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First French version of The Little Prince

17 July 2017

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s much-loved tale of The Little Prince was first published in New York in 1943, with Reynal & Hitchcock issuing it in both French and English versions.

Newton was master of the universe but not money

17 July 2017

Sold by RR Auction (25/22.5% buyer’s premium) on June 14 was a financial document of November 1721 bearing the signature of Isaac Newton – an order to pay to a Dr Francis Fauquier the dividend due on his substantial investment in the South Sea Company.

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Map marks early view of Canada

17 July 2017

Marc Lescarbot’s Nova Francia… of 1609 is an account of French settlements in North America and what we now think of as Nova Scotia and Canada. It predates the more famous first accounts of Champlain’s voyages and discoveries by three years.

Knoedler art fraudster Glafira Rosales ordered to pay $81m to victims

13 July 2017

Glafira Rosales, the Long Island art dealer who in 2013 pleaded guilty to charges of wire fraud, money laundering, and tax evasion in the Knoedler art forgery case, has been ordered to pay $81m to victims of the fraud.

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US retailer fined after seizure of illegally imported cultural property

10 July 2017

A large high street chain in the US has been fined $3m in connection with the purchase and importing of a large number of ancient Iraqi artefacts.

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Goya flop is now a big auction seller

10 July 2017

Preserved in a fine contemporary binding of crimson morocco gilt that seems likely to have been specially commissioned by the artist from Pasqual Carsi y Vidal, a leading Madrid binder, a rare presentation set of Goya’s Los Caprichos prints sold for $500,000 (£393,700) at Christie’s New York (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) on June 15.

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New director of fine books and manuscripts at Bonhams New York

05 July 2017

Ian Ehling has joined Bonhams’ New York office as director of fine books and manuscripts.

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Thousands of Titanic artefacts to be sold after owner goes bankrupt

04 July 2017

A court in the US will decide the fate of more than 5500 Titanic artefacts after the company that owns them filed for bankruptcy.

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Phillips launches its dedicated watch division in the US

03 July 2017

Ahead of the autumn sale of a star lot, Phillips' watch expert Aurel Bacs tells ATG why the time is right for the firm to expand its US watch business

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Maths textbook keeps up with the times

03 July 2017

The “oldest mathematical textbook still in common use today”, according to Printing and the Mind of man, is that written around 300BC by the Greek mathematician, Euclid of Alexandria.

A lot that should jog the memory

03 July 2017

One of the odder lots I have stumbled across in the many June book sales is a worn and soiled 12pp autograph catalogue, or calendar of “35 nude male races held on Kersal Moor [near Manchester] between 1777 and 1811”.

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Final flowering for Garden Museum

03 July 2017

The collection of Tiffany jewels offered by Christie’s New York (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) on June 20 was the finest at auction in recent memory.

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Frogs and toads, fairy tales and fantasies from illustrators

03 July 2017

Last offered at auction at Parke-Bernet in New York in 1945, as part of the famed Bronson Winthrop collection, a drawing made by John Tenniel for Alice through the Looking-Glass made $16,000 (£12,600) at Sotheby’s New York (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) on June 13 – though the saleroom had hoped it might make twice that sum.

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