Somerset

This curious object is the forerunner of a million Christmas cracker prizes. Made in gold and silver, c.1830, the ‘ring’ chased with flowers includes a tiny pin hole which allows a jet of water to be squirted into the face of an unsuspecting admirer via a syringe-like plunger that can be concealed in the palm.

Whisky has been a booming market in recent years, says Simon Jones, associate director at Lawrences (25% buyer’s premium) of Crewkerne.

A cache of material related to the influential Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-61) and her family sold for close to £50,000 at Lawrences of Crewkerne.

Though best remembered for his work as an illustrator and printmaker, British artist Ethelbert White (1891-1972) was also a prolific painter of English landscapes.

Six months after the last Shepton Fleamarket was held at the Bath & West Showground in Somerset, the event returns on Sunday, August 16, with more than 250 stalls.

This late drawing by Karl Hofer (1878-1955), the German Expressionist painter who was branded a creator of ‘degenerate art’ by the Nazis, was one of dozens consigned by his family to Taunton saleroom Greenslade Taylor Hunt (19.5% buyer’s premium).

Although outwardly simple objects, cedar ‘bent corner’ chests, still made today by the indigenous people of the Pacific North West, employ a number of sophisticated woodworking techniques.

This pair of silver and enamel cufflinks with the royal cypher of George VI comes in a presentation box by Plante of Bury Street, London.

An unusual but welcome inclusion to the latest silver and vertu sale at Lawrences of Crewkerne was a medieval walrus ivory tableman or backgammon piece.

It was during the Carter, Stabler and Adams period in the 1920s-30s that some of the most memorable Poole wares were produced. Much of this Art Deco range – red earthenwares covered in a white slip and a semi-matt-glaze before decoration in a variety of Jazz Age patterns – was based on the work of chief designer Truda Carter.

IACF has announced a change to the three-day antiques and collectors’ fairs held in Shepton Mallet at the Royal Bath and West Showground five times a year.

Invented in the 19th century but outmoded by word processors then computers, typewriters are now having a resurgence in the collecting world.

Estimated at £250-350 in a November 12 motoring and cycling sale being held by Transport Collector Auctions in conjunction with Lawrences, at the latter’s Crewkerne rooms, is a 1956 first of Darell Berthon’s Racing History of the Bentley.

“Germany calling, Germany calling” were the chilling opening words spoken by the upper-class British accent of William Joyce – Lord Haw Haw – and other presenters in propaganda radio broadcasts from Nazi Germany during the Second World War.

Somerset fair features more than 50 dealers with theme of ‘antiques in a contemporary home’.

A collection of diamond jewellery attracted international competition at Greenslade Taylor Hunt’s (19.5% buyer’s premium) June sale in Taunton. The cache of pre-war jewels was consigned following a house call by gemmologist and valuer Richard Slater. “It was a wonderful selection of jewellery. The owner had great taste,” he said.