North-west England

Must-have Christmas presents in the Sixties and Seventies, Sasha dolls have remarkable appeal today.

Maxine Stonehill of Pop Up Vintage Fairs has launched a new vintage fair, this time at the Art Deco Grade II-listed Walthamstow Assembly Hall.

‘Stage Coach Passengers passing Woburn Sands’ is one of 100 coloured engraved caricatures after Isaac Cruikshank that illustrate GM Woodward’s Eccentric Excursions or Literary and Pictorial Sketches in England and South Wales, interspersed with Curious Anecdotes of 1807.

Wright Marshall (21% buyer’s premium) featured a still-life by John Pawle (1915-2010) in its sale on October 28 in Knutsford, Cheshire.

Appearing to be as vividly coloured as when it was made in the 18th century, a brocaded silk robe à l’Anglaise breathed the style and quality associated with its Spitalfields makers.

In our continuing series looking through the keyhole of ‘bricks and mortar’ shops in 2017, ATG talks to Sven Hill about Hunt and Gather, an antiques, vintage and collectables shop in Warrington.

Perhaps the rarest of all Beswick’s output is the pit pony figure Spirit of Whitfield.

This late 19th century necklace offered by Peter Wilson's latest sale in Nantwich is a spectacular example of Grand Tour jewellery. Most Georgian or Victorian gentlemen keen to display an appreciation of classical art were satisfied to purchase just one or two hardstone intaglios as a souvenir.

A heavily carved and silvered wood ‘console table’, offered with an estimate of £1500-2500 at Lacy Scott & Knight’s (20% buyer’s premium) September 9 sale came with a somewhat exotic story.

Catalogued as early English, this slipware dish above had all the qualities of the combed decoration earthenware baking, or loaf, dishes produced in the late 18th to early 19th century and took the top price at Mitchells (20% buyers premium) of Cockermouth.

Originally considered just another 20th century burr oak tallboy among a stack of material from a house clearance brought into the Hazel Grove rooms of Maxwells (15% buyer’s premium), opinions changed when a carved mouse was noticed on the lower left leg.

Some auctioneers believe they are rock stars when they take to the rostrum. But the owner of a new auction business in the north-west has been closer to real-life rock stars than most gavel-masters.