North-west England

Two 1859 firsts of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species…, neither in what could be called good condition, made very strong prices in recent weeks. This is a book nowadays so desirable that such shortcomings can be overlooked.

“The best piece in the sale,” enthused auctioneer Richard Harrison in reference to a Meiji Kazaridana cabinet sold for £11,000 at Mitchells (20% buyer’s premium) at Cockermouth on June 13-15.

Running to just over a hundred pages and containing numerous illustrations of ships, figureheads and portrait busts, an accounts ledger kept by a Cumbrian shipbuilder has gone to a local museum.

Like many businesses scarred with bomb damage in post-war Britain, Lyons teashops were in need of cheering up.

Hard-paste figures of Russian ethnic characters and workers have appeared at English auctions on a number of occasions in recent years (ATGs passim), generally to keen interest from the Motherland and eastern Europe.

In the early development of motion pictures, this Kinora viewer, below, was the high end of the hugely popular ‘flip-book’ film machines.

Lancashire County Council is to reopen Lancaster Judges’ Lodgings, home to a key collection of Gillows furniture.

The belief that porcelain dolls are somehow sinister has taken hold in recent years – and doubtless the appearance of the rare bebe pictured below rather reinforced the bias of some who viewed the Heliers (18% buyer’s premium) sale at Blackburn.

Topping Mitchells’ (20% buyer’s premium) £53,000 Country Sporting sale in Cockermouth was an artist’s box belonging to George Lodge (1860-1954).

An eight-day longcase clock is a stand-out item of local interest at the upcoming Arley Hall Antiques and Fine Art Fair.

The world of Chinese art remains open to collectors on modest budgets if they look to some of the less fashionable wares, those from later periods and pieces that carry damage.

This portrait of an elderly gentleman tickled the taste buds of bidders when it was offered at Heliers Auction (18% buyer’s premium) in Lancashire.

Something of a rarity, To Iceland in a Yacht appears to have no other auction appearances to its name. It was privately printed in Edinburgh in 1873 for its author, the chemist Robert Angus Smith (1817-84), a man best known for his work on air pollution and his identification of what later came to be known as acid rain.

Having for decades been like one of those obscure religions in which passionate believers go about their business to the benign bemusement of everyone else, studio pottery is winning converts by the day.

A fresh-to-market consignment involving great names of Art Nouveau/Arts & Crafts and a New York buyer determined to have it… It hasn’t taken long for newcomer Heliers Auction (18% buyer’s premium) to come up with the sort of winning combination all auctioneers hope for.

Gene Hoyle, of Lancashire-based family firm Hoyles Promotions, which has been running busy weekly Sunday fleamarkets and car boots across north-west England for 40 years, is adding a “suitcase rummage” to his fleamarkets at Clitheroe Auction Mart in the Lancashire town.

Holker Hall, the privately owned country house in Cumbria, hosts its first fair in nearly 25 years this month.