Auctions

PROBABLY the best-known and the most coveted of the novelty table lighters made by the Ronson Lighter Co. is the 1936 patent Touch-Tip Bartender.

TOYS from before the First World War up to the 1970s met with an enthusiastic reception at Wallis & Wallis' (15% buyer's premium) specialist sale on June 14, few more so than a c.1912 Lehmann tinplate toy which raised something of an ethical question.

PICTURED right is a 2ft 1in (64cm) Jacobean amputation saw made by Robert Hobbs that is appearing at a sale at the Cedars Hotel in Stowmarket, Suffolk on July 30.

PROVING the highlight of the commemoratives offered by Special Auction Services (15% buyer’s premium) in the wake of the Leslie Crowther collection of pot lids and Prattware on June 7 was this George III King and Constitution earthenware beaker.

ANY sale overseen by Alain Weil has the potential to be interesting. His sale at the Hôtel Bergère, Paris, on June 18 was no exception. The items on offer in this 455-lot sale ranged from classical times to the distinctive medals of the Art Deco.

BIGGLES had a big day planned at Dominic Winter’s Swindon salerooms on June 24, with just over 100 lots on offer, mostly from one collection.

THE highlight of Christie's (20.93/11.96% buyer's premium) sale on June 14 was this 16in (40cm) high Benin bronze plaque (c.1580-1620), right, featuring a warrior chief, brandishing a sceptre in his right hand and a short eben sword in his left. The plaque, formerly owned by Edgar Dimsey, a surgeon on the British punitive expedition to Benin in February 1897, retained sharp detailing and sold to a European collector for a hefty €450,000 (£300,000) against an estimate of €150,000-200,000.

THE Paris firm of Bourgey was founded in Paris in 1895. Now under the direction of the granddaughter of the founder, Sabine Bourgey, it is still going strong if the recent sale on June 3 is anything to go by.

SPEAKING after a combined-operation sale at Edinburgh on June 10-11 which offered jewellery, silver and furniture, Bonhams’ (17.5/10% buyer's premium) specialist Bruce Anderson said: “Ultimately trade buying underpins a sale so if the trade is finding business tricky this affects us.

WITH London hosting Asia week, Olympia and Grosvenor House in June, there was always going to be a trade battle for a Chinese vase which proved the sleeper of Charterhouse's (15% buyer's premium) 870-lot May 21 auction.

COMBINE the perennial appeal of the Fabergé name with the current demand for all things Russian and it has been no surprise to see soaring prices for pieces by this famous firm in recent seasons.

AN auctioneer contemplating an old boxed set of wooden soldiers complete with faded instructions for war games could be forgiven for steering it towards the toy section, or even a specialist toy sale.

A SMALL group of animal stirrup cups provided the high points at Christie’s South Kensington’s silver sale held on June 16 affirming the evergreen appeal of novelty and collectors items over more useful hollowares.

THE work of the pioneering Victorian designer Christopher Dresser is soon to have a major public airing in an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum opening this September. In the meantime the rarest examples of his iconic designs continue to command high prices in the marketplace.

ON July 15, Bonhams will present a double-catalogue sale of 500 lots of natural history books and watercolours from a single collection and one of the highlights will be a very special copy of Audebert & Viellot’s Oiseaux dorés ou a reflets metalliques... of 1800-02.

The primary artistic influence behind the Prattware phenomenon that captivated Victorian society for 40 years was the freelance artist and engraver Jesse Austin (1806-1879).

THE rare and unusual mid-18th century mahogany Windsor chair pictured on the front page of Antiques Trade Gazette No 1643, June 12, was not the only enigmatic armchair in Mallams' (15% buyer's premium) April 22 sale. The supporting cast to that £23,000 chair – an unusual hybrid combining the features of the English country chair with the timber and the modeling of urban cabinetmaking – included a Egyptian Revival walnut tub chair.

WAS it a case of not being market-fresh or a change in fashion that resulted in such a dramatic nose-dive in value for this black chalk, stump and watercolour, right, by Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788), when it came up at Christie’s King Street on June 3? Against hopes of £40,000-60,000 it scraped home with a final bid of £35,000 (£41,825 with premium) from a private collector.

JOHN Snow’s best-known work, On the Mode of Communication of Cholera, deals with his investigations into the London cholera epidemic of 1831-32.

PERIOD if possible, but, above all, practical – this seems to be the current code among furniture buyers in the experience of Amersham Auction Rooms (15% buyer's premium) over the past couple of years.