Auctions

An Olympic blazer and a painted diploma belonging to Ada Smith, a bronze medal-winning gymnast from Leigh near Wigan, will be up for auction on August 16-17 at Adam Partridge auctioneers of Macclesfield, Cheshire.

A market-fresh private Scottish collection of works by John Maclauchlan Milne (1886-1957) has been consigned to Lindsay Burns & Company’s antiques and fine art sale on August 14.

This 19th century metamorphic mahogany estates writing desk will appear at Diamond Mills & Co’s sale in Felixstowe on August 8.

A group of items belonging to Inspector Black, the arresting officer in the 1950s murder trial of Timothy Evans, is to be offered for sale on August 4 at Ryedale Auctioneers in Kirkbymoorside, North Yorkshire.

This is the season of agricultural shows and so Duke’s of Dorchester’s June 20 sale of British agricultural medals was well timed.

This intricate ivory okimono group from c.1880 took £25,000 at the most recent sale held by Nicholson’s of Fernhurst.

Lyon & Turnbull are to sell the contents of the New York home of Donald and Eleanor Taffner, important collectors of works by the Glasgow School.

Beijing-based auction house China Guardian is reported to be launching a sales programme in Hong Kong this autumn.

A rare blue and white version of William De Morgan’s design of a kingfisher catching a fish while perched on a branch appeared at the latest Arts & Crafts sale at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury.

Dealer, collector, author, military historian – Shamus Wade amassed the remarkable collection of toy soldiers and figures which was recently sold at Special Auction Services of Greenham, near Newbury.

Documented in the book ‘The Allure of Toy Ships: American & European Nautical Toys from the 19th and 20th Centuries’, the Richard T. Claus collection is widely acknowledged as the best toy boat collection in America and, some say, rivals the very best in Europe.

Among the clocks sold in London this summer, there were some of the glitziest and most expensive timekeepers to go under the hammer in recent times, many of them made for the Chinese market.

On July 31, Capes Dunn’s Northern Artists sale in Manchester will include ‘Woman Walking’ by L.S. Lowry (1887-1976).

A small collection of railwayana from the estate of the late Stephen Crook, a Carlisle-based collector and railway photographer, will be included at Thomson, Roddick & Medcalf’s sale on August 2 in Carlisle.

This Titanic postcard has been consigned to White Star Line specialists Henry Aldridge & Son to be included in their sale on July 28 in Devizes, Wiltshire.

A pair of 19th or early 20th century Chinese porcelain fish bowls found in a barn on the grounds of a local country house are on sale at Reeman Dansie’s two-day auction on July 31-August 1 in Colchester.

This stunning pair of 19th century blue john pedestal urns was the outstanding star at Tennants’ £1.8m summer sale at Leyburn.

This Saturday, Provenance Auction House of Cape Town will sell the first instalment of an extraordinary collection of 300 bells formed by the late Keith Blumgart.

In 1922, Beatrix Potter, with her most famous little books already behind her, was persuaded by Anne Carroll Moore of the New York Public Library to produce a book of illustrated nursery rhymes.

Among the best Modern British pictures offered at Lawrences of Crewkerne on July 6 was Edward Burra’s (1905-76) ‘Funfair’, which was consigned from a good local collection barely 24 hours before the catalogue went to press.