Auctions

A group of father-and-son lots related to the Royal Navy may have been small in size but revealed a combined service in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars that was lengthy.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

Judging by recent events, members of the Conservative Party might well look back longingly to the days of Margaret Thatcher when Britain’s first female prime minister brought a comparative measure of stability to government.

'Paris Photo', the French capital’s annual fair dedicated to photography, holds its 25th edition at the Grand Palais Ephémère from November 10-13.

Air Commander J Searby had a key role to play in the Peenemunde Raid targeting the V weapons factory during the night of the August 17-18, 1943, as part of the RAF’s elite Path Finder Force.

A single-owner collection of watches assembled over many decades and spanning 500 years of horology was offered by Aguttes (25/23% buyer’s premium) in Neuilly-sur-Seine near Paris.

ATG’s pick of auction lots bought by internet bidders on thesaleroom.com, featuring both the highest prices over-estimate and the top prices paid online.

Relatively few gallantry medals available for what was short self-contained conflict, heroic stories involving highly collectable regiments, a relatively morally unambiguous backstory (for British collectors at least)… the Falklands War can generate high demand at auction.

Much, much earlier than most other entries in a comics and comic art sale that ran at Heritage (25% buyer’s premium) from September 30 to October 2 were examples of the work of Winsor McCay (c.1866-67-1934), who was well known as an accomplished editorial and political cartoonist and for his work in the world of animation and cartoon strips.

The big attraction in a job lot estimated at £60-100 that went on to sell for £14,000 in a September 23 sale held by Ewbank’s (25% buyer’s premium) was a copy of Britannia: or, a Chorographical Description…, Dr Edmund Gibson’s 1695, updated and English language version of a well-known earlier work.

A selection of 12 upcoming lots from auctions taking place around the UK and Ireland.

When Bill Speakman won his Victoria Cross on November 4, 1951, fighting beside him was Corporal John Pender.

A couple of weeks after the Aguttes watches auction another collection in the same category went under the hammer in Paris.

A police ledger sold more than triple its top estimate featured original mug shots and criminal records relating to 500 people including a woman accused of plotting to kill Prime Minister David Lloyd George in 1917.

In 1888, in response to a tender issued by the War Office, Prof Archibald Barr and Dr William Stroud submitted an application for an optical range-finder patent to the Patents Office.

In the early 1930s, following the closure of its ironstone mines, unemployment in the east Cleveland region of North Yorkshire reached a harrowing 90%.

A George III mahogany china cabinet became one of the most expensive pieces of English furniture ever sold when it took $2.2m (£2m) during the opening salvos of Christie’s New York sale of the Ann and Gordon Getty collection.