North America

Written just a year before his death in 1955, a famous two-page letter in which Albert Einstein put down his thoughts on religion, his Jewish identity and his own search for the meaning of life sold for $2.4m (£1.89m) in a New York auction on December 4.

A selection of potential highlights coming up in December and January sales taking place in Detroit, Chicago, New York, California, Boston and Connecticut.

Raising around $11m including premiums, a November 15-17 comics and comic art sale held by Heritage Auctions (20% buyer’s premium) in Dallas included many of the usual super-hero star turns – but this time the big seller was something rather different.

The jacket of the 1904 first of Jack London’s The Sea-Wolf shown right is quite obviously in a sorry state – falling apart and with sizeable sections missing all round. It is, however, a jacket previously known only by rumour or talk of ‘one other copy thought to exist’.

Admirers of American neoclassical decorative arts have been treated to a wealth of exhibitions in recent years, and now even more is available to discover and acquire.

Two copies of Time Out of Joint, an early dystopian work by the well-known sci-fi writer Philip K Dick, were offered in a PBA Galleries (20/15% buyer’s premium) sale of October 18.

Dated October 29, 1862, a letter that may very well have been Abraham Lincoln’s last to his over-cautious army chief, General George McClellan, provided a highlight of a recent Dallas sale of historical manuscripts.

Tiffany exhibited only gold jewellery at the 1878 Paris exposition, including a collection of ‘Japanesque’ pieces.

This 18ct two-colour gold and enamel Hebe brooch to a design by Georges Braque, c.1962, carries an estimate of $2500-3500 at Leslie Hindman’s Important Jewelry sale in Chicago on December 3.

Fontaine’s in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, is holding one of its periodic horological auctions on November 17.

One of just 100 first edition copies of National Golf Links of America by Charles Blair MacDonald was the top lot in a recent US golf sale at $15,000 (£11,450).

The Scottish gun-making workshop of Doune in Perthshire produced pistols that were a firearm of choice for highland clansmen but were also favoured by wealthy socialites.

A North-west Coast Tlingit pipe in the form of a bear will be offered at an upcoming auction in Boston.

The sale titled California Jewelry held by Doyle in New York on November 19 includes some fine period pieces sourced by the Manhattan firm via its West Coast office.