Auction Reports

This very rare bear shown below made a very high price for such a small fellow – just 14cm (5½in) high.

It is 40 years since 19th century potlids were the collectables of choice but there is still a very active market for them.

Musicians from different generations provided sound results at Suffolk saleroom Bishop & Miller (19% buyer’s premium).

Illustrated here are some of the oldest lots ever auctioned – three in the Evolution Sale at on November 20 at Summers Place Auctions (25/20% buyer’s premium) of Billingshurst, West Sussex, and the other from Fonsie Mealy (23% buyer’s premium inc VAT) of Castlecomer, Ireland, in a sale held on the same day.

Originally given as presents to infants, early dolls, rocking horses and even board games can now inspire passions among collectors far surpassing the delight of children on Christmas morning and far exceeding most doting parents’ budgets.

A rare rocking horse by one of the top 19th-early 20th century makers, FH Ayres of London, left quite a lot to be desired but raced away at Adam Partridge’s (15% buyer’s premium) Macclesfield sale on November 23.

Believed to have been in the same family since new, a rare 19th century Jules Steiner doll and her trunk of clothes demolished the estimate at a wide-ranging sale at Lawrences (22% buyer’s premium) at Crewkerne on November 16.

Despite some condition issues, such as composite body, right hand thumb missing and slight damage to fingers and feet, this bisque head Kämmer & Reinhardt 109 doll sold for £3900 at Hansons (20% buyer’s premium) on November 23.

In a specialist maritime and scientific instruments auction there were only three furniture lots at Charles Miller (24% buyer’s premium), but one of them led the day.

A rare photographic postcard sold via thesaleroom.com at a surprise £850 (estimate £30-50) at Toovey’s (24.5% buyer’s premium) in Washington, West Sussex on October 30.

Among the most desirable of all Royal Doulton Lambeth productions are those depicting scenes of flora and fauna from Australasia.

A Glasgow bidder in the room secured a Scottish Cup medal won in 1923 by a player from the green and white half of the Old Firm.

An English provincial rarity, the 3½in (9cm) tall, c.1688 Norwich beaker below was a target for collectors at Henry Adams (20% buyer’s premium) of Chichester.

Rare as Forres silver is, three pieces by the Highland town’s smiths John and Patrick Riach were on offer at Edinburgh auction house Thomson Roddick (17.5% buyer’s premium) on October 11 – the fiddle pattern dessert spoon, below, and two characteristic Scottish toddy labels.

This classical Guild of Handicrafts bowl, below, underlined the popularity of Arts & Crafts silver when offered by Essex auction house Stacey’s (20% buyer’s premium).

Catalogued as a ‘travelling ensemble’ these two oak fitted cases of silver tableware, below, conjure up images of lavish inter-war era picnics.

Despite its size and various eras of occupation, Malta sustained a vibrant silver and gold-working tradition across several centuries.

This pair of Commonwealth silver plates, London 1645, bear the contemporaneous arms of the Puritan Bulstrode Whitelocke (1605-75).

This fine pair of Victorian silver six-branch candelabra sold to a United Arab Emirates bidder on thesaleroom.com for £13,000 at John Nicholson’s (24% buyer’s premium) in Haslemere, Surrey, on October 15.

Following the wake of the influential 1862 International Exhibition in London (when Japanese art first reached a wide British audience), this tea service below would have been the height of fashion when it was made by Richard Martin and Ebenezer Hall in 1879.