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THERE WAS no competing with Harry Potter in the Sotheby’s sale of July 10, and bidding rose to £75,000 for Thomas Taylor’s original illustration for the the book that launched those wizard tales in 1997, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, but Beatrix Potter did her bit too, as did Edmund Dulac, Kay Nielsen, W. Heath Robinson, E.H. Shepard, Lawson Wood, Ronald Searle, Dr Seuss and others.

Miller’s Collecting Science & Technology, by Lindsay Stirling, consultant George Glastris. ISBN 1840000791. £19.99 hb.

UK: SIR Alfred James Munnings proved as great a magnet as ever at Sotheby’s South’s Billingshurst rooms on July 18 when a watercolour sketch for one of his oil paintings fetched a hammer price of £62,000, more than double the low estimate.

The Art of the Book: From Medieval Manuscript to Graphic Novel edited by James Bettley, published by V&A Publications. ISBN 1851773339. £30 hb.

The long debate over droit de suite, the artists resale levy, is over after the European Union finally ratified the measure in Brussels last week.

Hiroshige Fan Prints by Rupert Faulkner, published by V&A Publications. ISBN 01851773320. £30 hb.

A previously unknown and early draft of one of the key closing chapters of James Joyce’s Ulysses, the Eumaeus episode, was offered at Sotheby’s on July 10, and it was one of two committed private buyers who took the lot to £780,000, just short of the low estimate.

FRIDAY 13th proved a long day at Glendining’s (15 per cent buyer’s premium) with 735 lots – not that this was unlucky. It was, as usual, a general sale but there is plenty of general interest to write about.

UK: After months of speculation as to whether Tim Clifford might be able to secure a private treaty purchase on behalf of the National Galleries of Scotland, Michelangelo’s (1475-1564) pen and ink Study of a Mourning Woman finally came under the hammer at Sotheby’s (20/15/10% buyer’s premium) July 11 Old Master drawings sale with an estimate of £5-7m.

IT is rare for childhood toys to emerge from years of love and affection unscathed by the ravages of time but a Kidderminster vendor was rewarded for the care taken with the 1960s battery operated robot, pictured, which came under the hammer at the Chester rooms of Halls (15 per cent buyer’s premium) on June 27.

eBay has beaten predictions once again in its latest set of results, showing impressive growth in revenues as well as in the number of registered users.

THE local west Scottish trade were the driving force behind the 75 per cent take-up on the 589 lots offered at Mctear's. Glasgow on June 15 – including the surprise star piece.

THE wheels may be coming off RailTrack and rail shares plunging generally, but in the older parallel world of steam things could hardly be better. Looking at sales figures of 544 lots getting away out of 550 offered and a total of £383,000 on June 16 at Sheffield Railwayana Auctions, other auctioneers can only envy Ian Wright’s decision some years ago to specialise in railwayana.

Furniture coming fresh to the market from a cottage in Petersfield attracted the majority of interest at this 490-lot dispersal at Jacobs & Hunt on June 15.

UK: The highest and arguably most unexpected result in the 19th century section of Sotheby’s July 11 Works of Art sale came with the piece pictured here, a 3ft 7in (1.1m) high silvered statue of Galatea by Max Klinger which sold for £220,000. The subject is a characteristically symbolist work showing the sea nymph seated on a mottled grey marble throne carved with dolphins and is perhaps inspired by Gustave Doré’s painting shown at the 1880 Salon, and by Huysmann’s novel A Rebours.

UK: Children’s past playthings, toys for bigger boys and nostalgic mementos of cult TV programmes. All these could be found this month in the London rooms.

UK: JONATHAN Horne, the well-known British ceramics dealer, pictured centre, has been elected the new chairman of the British Antique Dealers Association. He follows John Bly, pictured left. Also pictured is the Rt Hon Peter Brooke CH, who has been elected President of the BADA for the seventh year.

Golf fans will acknowledge the significance of this contraption, only the third wooden gutty cutter to ever have appeared at auction.

A well-wrapped and padded pair of boxing gloves are essential, one would think, for victory in the ring. But arguably it was the defective nature of the left hand glove, pictured here, which gave Cassius Clay his win over Henry Cooper in 1963, after letting him off the hook.

UK: Kent Trading Standards have confirmed that Barclaycard’s recently launched mobile credit and debit card machines can cut red tape for dealers under the imminent Kent Act.