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Bound as two volumes in contemporary red morocco gilt, its plates and plans finely coloured and gilt heightened throughout, an exceptional example of Joan Blaeu’s celebrated 17th century townbook of the Netherlands was offered in a recent American sale.

Eight determined bidders were on hand when Karl & Faber (25% buyer’s premium) sold a floral still-life by Nicolaes van Veerendael (1640-91) at auction in Munich.

MADAM – I write regarding charging for condition reports for lower-value lots.

Serendipity had it that three early pieces of European pottery and glass – two of them dated – were offered for sale across a trio of English regional auctions in a matter of days in December.

A fine example of a dirk, without which no Highland formal dresswear is complete, was among the stand-out lots at Cuttlestones’ (17.5% buyer’s premium) sale at Penkridge on November 22.

Dated April 5, 1768, the simple printed broadside shown below lays down the ‘Rules…’ that apply to those wishing to use the Circulating Library in Ashbo[u]rne in Derbyshire.

Since 1994, the New York businessman Richard Baron Cohen has been a welcome guest at international auctions, fairs and dealers.

Two pieces with imperial connections took the top honours during the November 5-23 sale at Hermann Historica (25% buyer’s premium) in Munich.

Glass specialists Liz and Mike Flatter will be first-time exhibitors at the IACF Shepton Mallet antiques and collectors’ fair at the Bath and West Showground on Friday to Sunday, January 18-20.

MADAM – F Segolini makes some interesting and valid points about the failure of alcohol prohibition in the US (Letters, ATG No 2373).

One of the more unusual corkscrews to come onto what is a fiercely competitive collectors’ market recently was a brass, steel and wooden contraption of the type one may have seen clamped to the bar of fin-de-siècle brasseries.

While £90,000 is an awful lot of money for an empty metal box, this old black painted and gold lettered deed box does bear the magic name of Winston Churchill.

ATG’s selection of auction lots bought by internet bidders on thesaleroom.com from the period December 19-January 2, 2019. This includes both the highest prices over estimate and the top prices paid online.

While five-figure sums for top-end 20th century design furniture are familiar in the international centres of New York, Paris and London, fewer pieces appear in the UK regional market.

Painted as a birthday gift, a portrait of one of the more popular characters in the annals of American children’s literature, Eloise, sold for $80,000 (£62,675) at Bonhams New York (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) on December 5.

Since the early 1990s Wolfgang Thillmann, a German and philosophy teacher, has devoted himself to collecting Thonet bentwood furniture and become an internationally acknowledged expert in the process.

Arnold Pash (1928-2018), veteran silver dealer of A Pash & Son, passed away peacefully on December 6, 2018, at home surrounded by his family after battling cancer and ill health.

Testament to a vibrant market for vintage Tudor wristwatches, a very scarce Oysterdate – the reference 7031 or ‘Homeplate’ – proved the star of Hansons’ Christmas auction at Bishton Hall, Staffordshire.

ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from January 8-31, 2019.

This Chinese export porcelain punch bowl will feature in a large two-day sale of more than 750 lots of Americana and international interest at Pook & Pook in Downingtown, Pennsylvania, on January 11-12.