Pick of the Week

A pair of Sphinx garden ornaments estimated at just £300-500 at a Suffolk auction were hammered down at £195,000.

A group of 52 Tudor, Stuart and Commonwealth England hammered gold coins rediscovered after 60 years shine at auction.

A Venetian painting attributed to the great Canaletto (1697-1798) was offered at Gorringe’s (23% buyer’s premium) latest auction, selling for £300,000.

This rare Victorian silver vesta case with an enamelled scene of an early tiller-driven automobile is hallmarked for Sampson Mordan & Co, London 1896.

Estimated at £400-600, this 7in (17cm) high Chinese export silver dragon handled tankard sold for a much higher sum.

This near-complete Böttger Meissen tea set, c.1725, came for sale at Keys of Aylsham on September 1.

The record for American ceramics – previously held by Salisbury’s Woolley & Wallis – was smashed this month by a ‘Dave the Slave’ jar.

The National Library of Wales was among the successful bidders when an archive relating to the poet and painter John Dyer (1699-1757) emerged for sale in Yorkshire this month.

A solitary English blue and white porcelain coffee cup emerged from the relative anonymity of a one-line catalogue description and a £120-180 estimate to sell for £4100 at Keys in Aylsham on July 24.

One of only two known copies of the first edition of the rules of football printed by the world’s first football club came to auction at Sotheby’s on July 21.

A rare Georgian print on a sporting theme was offered by Northumberland auction house.

A Renaissance helmet sold at a London auction will be reunited with its garniture (set of armour) after being bought by Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA).

Charles Carroll’s printed copy of the Declaration of Independence – discovered earlier this year in a Scottish family home – sold at auction in Philadelphia for $3.7m (£2.85m) plus premium.

Believed to date from the mid-17th century, this double portrait is a fascinating painting on many accounts.

A new record for the Pilkington’s Lancastrian factory was set by Moreton-in-Marsh firm Kinghams.

Gold medal won at Wimbledon in 1936 by British tennis great is purchased by the Lawn Tennis Museum at the All England Lawn Tennis Club

The stern face, luxurious moustache and pointing finger are instantly familiar – but the message below Kitchener’s intense gaze not so.

The silvered dial to this 1960s stainless steel bracelet watch gives a clue to its former owner.

Duke’s sale of property from Wormington Grange in Gloucestershire included a record for the Modern British painter Algernon Newton (1880-1968).