Auction Reports

To mark the new range of Star Wars toys that came with the release of Return of the Jedi in 1983, the Leicester firm Palitoy commissioned a series of hand-built and hand-painted store displays to send to some of its best retailers.

Power of the Force line was launched as the original Star Wars began to lose its shine but rarest figures still bring demand

As famous last words go, those of Major General John Sedgwick in the American Civil War take some beating.

This 13in (33cm) ormolu vase candelabrum is a candidate for the earliest English neoclassical metalwork.

This Victorian cased diorama of birds of paradise native to New Guinea sold for £18,000 to lead Tennants’ (22% buyer’s premium) Natural History and Taxidermy sale in Leyburn on April 20.

Pair sold at Somerset saleroom spark a debate on where and when they were made

A medal awarded to a member of the only Canadian battalion composed of black soldiers to serve in the First World War has sold in a London auction.

This large oak Orientalist carving, 'Eastern Slave Girl', is by the Victorian woodcarver Thomas Henry Kendall.

A Queen Anne treen nutcracker proved popular at auction.

The Islamic and Indian Art sale at Bonhams (27.5/25/20/14.5% buyer’s premium) on March 29 was topped by a diamond and emerald set gold pendant from the collection of Maharani Jindan Kaur (1817-63).

The March 30-31 sale at Bellmans (22% buyer’s premium) in Wisborough Green included three pieces from the Royal Crown Derby Judge Gary service.

Carved from the heart of the toa or ironwood tree, long pole clubs with scalloped blades (akatara) are associated with Rarotonga and Atiu on the Cook Islands.

Estimated at £25,000-40,000, this 15th century Istrian marble wellhead in the late Gothic style sold for £110,000 at Summers Place Auctions (25/20% buyer’s premium) in West Sussex on March 29.

On April 9, Chilcotts (21% buyer’s premium) in Honiton, Devon, offered 25 lots of Heal’s limed oak furniture from a single property.

Toadstones are understood to be the button-like palatal teeth of lepidotes, an extinct genus of ray finned fish from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.

China trade wares attract significant bidding at Dreweatts

Knowledgeable bidders spot a design by Owen Jones on offer in North Yorkshire

The Blickensderfer Typewriter Co of Stanford, Connecticut, introduced the Niagara ‘index’ typewriter in 1902.

While the market for post-war wares by Thompson’s of Kilburn – particularly the animal and figure carvings – has grown substantially in recent years, the ‘prime period’ for Mouseman collecting remains the 1920s-30s.

Cats were represented in the social and religious practices of ancient Egypt for several millennia.