Auctions

This cased pair of English flintlock duelling pistols by Joseph Gulley, London, c.1810-15, sold for £8600 at Halls (20/12% buyer’s premium) in a timed online sale that ended on August 2.

A small group of highly personal works by Henry Lamb (1883-1960) provided an intriguing insight into his life and work at the Modern British art sales at Bonhams this summer.

It is close on 50 years since a 1705 first of John Law’s 'Money and Trade Considered…' was seen at auction, said Lyon & Turnbull (20% buyer’s premium) of the copy in re-backed contemporary calf that it sold for £22,000 in a summer sale held in Edinburgh.

The two cut-out and trimmed coloured initials illustrated here are part of a group of six, taken from two manuscripts of 12th century French origin, that made up a lot sold for £10,000 in a July 6 sale held by Bloomsbury Auctions (25/20/12% buyer’s premium).

The Nicolier family were long-established antiques dealers who were based on the Quai Voltaire on the Parisian left bank for many decades.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, the French military could feel pretty proud of itself. The dashing style and spirit of their forces in the 19th century often inspired other nations to create copycat units.

The murder of William Weare in the Hertfordshire village of Radlett in 1823 has been called the first trial by newspaper.

A combination of artist, sitter, date and quality ensured a compelling Newlyn school portrait caught the eye at David Lay’s latest auction in Penzance.

According to family history, an Art Deco four-piece suite offered by Mander (20% buyer’s premium) in Sudbury on July 9 has an ocean-going history.

Items collected and meticulously recorded from the 1970s onwards by a trade couple had the attractions of ‘dealer’s choice’ provenances when offered at Hanson Holloway’s Ross (25% buyer’s premium).

Both categories are particularly notable as Mark and Marjorie Allen lots sell in Pennsylvania

Overseas interest in tribal art and Doulton Lambeth wares fuelled the higher prices at Cuttlestones’ (20% buyer’s premium) Penkridge sale but it was a new outbreak of cardomania which raised temperatures of collectors across England.

Gastronomy-themed books spanning five centuries were offered in a London auction.

Works by Sir Kyffin Williams (1918-2006) generated a combined £221,640 at Rogers Jones’ latest Welsh Sale.

The first Michelin guide was published in 1900 by the eponymous tyre company.

As Sand, an Elizabethan house in east Devon which has been in the Huyshe family since 1560, is being sold for the first time in over 460 years, Chilcotts (21% buyer’s premium) dispersed much of the contents on July 16.

Offering a copy of the second of JK Rowling’s famous tales to be published, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets of 1998, a lot that featured in a July 16 sale held by Rogers Jones (24% buyer’s premium) was certainly an unusual one.