South-west England

A rare American coin from a schoolboy’s coin collection was knocked down at auction for £185,000 at Salisbury saleroom Woolley & Wallis this week.

Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood’s three-day fine art sale on January 29-31 in Exeter includes several photographs possibly taken by the founder of the Photographic Society, Roger Fenton (1819-69).

The first sale of the year for Woolley & Wallis’ jewellery department takes place on January 24 in Salisbury.

This American half-cent coin, dated 1796, will be auctioned in Woolley & Wallis’ Salisbury auction rooms on January 22 with an estimate of £25,000-30,000.

The Wemyss factory in Fife has become almost exclusively associated with its distinctive, personable pottery pigs and Lawrences’ sale in Crewkerne on January 17 contains four pleasing porkers in various sizes and patterns.

At first glance all looks well in this Edwardian garden party scene illustrated on the lid of a Huntley & Palmers biscuit tin. But is that a naked couple in the bushes at the back of the picture?

This stoneware model of a rhino led the latest sale at Cottees which proved to be one of the most successful the Poole auctioneers have held in recent years.

While anthropomorphic bird figures have long been seen as the most desirable products of the Martin Brothers’ art pottery, recently there has been an upsurge in demand for their equally characterful grotesque models.

Advertising ephemera from two large collections is on offer at Chippenham Auction Rooms on November 24 in Wiltshire.

John Edgeler and Roger Little are slipware evangelists. The pair are devoted to extolling the virtues of 20th century slipware by Michael Cardew (1901-82) and his peers at Winchcombe pottery.

It was the emergence of the very useful but somewhat hazardous ‘strike anywhere’ match in the 1830s that necessitated the fashion for vesta cases.

Wine labels from the old and celebrated Sandeman collection provided 63 lots to Woolley & Wallis’ sale in Salisbury last month.

This DFC medal group of a British Spitfire pilot who survived the war despite crashing and being given up for dead by his colleagues has an estimate of £8000-10,000 in Plymouth Auction Rooms’ November 21 sale.

This silver Art Deco trophy is one of the lots in the Cotswold Auction Company’s Vintage Costume, Textiles and 20th century Decorative Arts sale on November 20 in Cheltenham.

This portrait of a ballet dancer by Doris Clare Zinkeisen (1898-1991), is estimated at £4000-6000 at Chorley’s sale at Prinknash, Gloucestershire on November 15.

A large collection of playing cards comprising some 200 lots has been consigned to Stroud Auctions in Gloucestershire and will be sold without reserves on November 14-15.

In a marketplace seriously in need of entry-level collectors, the great majority of Royal Doulton character jugs and HN series figures are worth under £100 – and most of them less than £30 when sold without reserve at auction.

This 2ft 5in x 2ft ½in (75 x 62cm) bust length portrait drew the attention of a number of bidders with a particular interest in historical pictures when it appeared at auction in Dorchester.

This large, scratch-built 5in gauge Great Western Railway locomotive is one of two being sold at Lawrences of Crewkerne on November 2, with both expected to realise £3000-4000.

Once she was Picasso’s muse, now she is capping her own career of more than 25 years as an artist with a three-week exhibition at The Fosse Gallery in Stow-on-the-Wold.