Auctions

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.

Penny in the slot machines known as a ‘Working Model’ came in many guises but, essentially, they all formed a large upright cabinet with a glass window top section.

A lampshade painted by Quentin Bell sold for a remarkable £4700 when Adam Partridge (20% buyer’s premium) dispersed the residual collection of Michael Evans in Macclesfield.

An original dust jacket made all the difference when Weiss Auctions (20% buyer’s premium) offered a first edition copy of Agatha Christie’s Dumb Witness in Lynbrook, New York.

As well as being an artist’s model and gallery owner who founded the museum dedicated to the work of the sculptor Aristide Maillol, Dina Vierny was also known as a collector of antique dolls.

There is a huge disconnect today between the best and rest in the sampler world.

London Transport commissioned publisher Edward Stanford to create the so-called ‘Bubble Map’ in 1934-35.

This terracotta figure is typical of the highly stylised pottery models honouring a fertility or mother goddess, made in Persia in the first millennium BC.

A sterling silver scale model of the Lockheed TriStar aircraft was the top lot at Kinghams’ (25% buyer’s premium) Silver and Objects of Vertu sale in the Cotswolds.

Roseberys’ (26/25/20% buyer’s premium) final Fine & Decorative sale of the year included this recent charity shop donation: a Nantgarw cabinet plate decorated by Thomas Pardoe (1770-1823).

Auction offered near-complete example of the set that also formed a first pocket atlas of England and Wales

Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins and Niall MacGinnis are not exactly household names these days but they starred in what is now regarded as one of the best horror films of the 1950s.

The Doll & Bears Sale at Vectis (20.83% buyer’s premium) in Stockton-on-Tees included this rare Disney Donald Duck from the 1930s.

A tartan deck blanket, a pocket watch and a first-class dinner menu were all top-sellers in the latest auction of Titanic, White Star and Transport Memorabilia at Henry Aldridge & Son (plus 26.4% buyer’s premium).

This extraordinary Tiffany & Co. silver and mixed metal vase has many of the characteristics of the firm’s chief designer and director of its silver works, Edward Chandler Moore (1827-91).

The toy company of Lines is often mentioned in relation to rocking horses but it was a double bay-fronted dolls’ house produced in c.1895 that impressed at Sheffield saleroom Ellis Willis & Beckett (19.5% buyer’s premium).

Roseberys (26% buyer’s premium) posted the second-highest auction price for Peter Rose Pulham (1910-56) at its most recent sale of Modern British & 20th Century Art.

Pierre Hodé (1889-1942) learned his trade in Paris, a resident of the famous Bateau-Lavoiri building in Montmartre where his close neighbour was Juan Gris.

Dolls’ houses from the collection of a renowned expert and author came to auction in Kent.

The Late John Ruddle Collection of toy soldiers sale held at C&T (22% buyer’s premium) on December 6 was a very special occasion.