Collectables

FRANCE: A Paris court has told one of the world’s leading Websites to prevent French Web-users from gaining access to auctions featuring Nazi memorabilia.

UK: THE PHENOMENAL success enjoyed in the English speaking world by J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter... books has been expensively reflected in the antiquarian, or rather secondhand book world, where (even in the high priced modern firsts market) the prices being asked for Harry the First are almost unbelievable.

UK: BONHAMS have announced that they will close their coin and medal department following their July 18 sale, whose main feature is a collection of minor Roman and Byzantine coins.

UK: “ONE of only two known examples of Marconi’s first commercial wireless set in complete condition”, was how this inconsequentially appearing box was described by the English trade underbidder at G.A. Key’s sale in Aylsham, Norfolk on May 4.

UK: POOR old Neville Chamberlain. He always takes the blame for all but delivering up the British people to Adolf Hitler, when perhaps he should really be seen merely as one of those Edwardian throwbacks like Eden who believed, quite rightly, that there was no aspect of a fascist dictatorship which could threaten the lifestyle of the English upper classes.

UK: At the International Classic Motorcycle Show in Stafford on April 16, two determined collectors fought this rare 1954 AJS E90 ‘Porcupine’ to £142,000 (plus 15/10% buyer’s premium).

UK: This rare Märklin first series handpainted tinplate battleship, HMS Resolution, sold for $40,600 (£26,365) on April 12, having been offered online on sothebys.amazon.com (10 per cent buyer’s premium).

UK: MANCHESTER United may be the most successful football team in the world at present, but it was a reminder of the most tragic event in the history of the club which stirred bidders at Phillips sale of the Leslie Millman collection of team programmes and memorabilia at Old Trafford on April 10-11.

UK: THE prophet Ezekiel may not have recognised this Victorian model from the original which he was told to build by a shining man “upon a very high mountain” 3000 years ago, but no matter – this scale version of Solomon’s Temple stands alone as a unique creation in the public spirit.

UK: Two Victorian scale models of ancient temples turned up in the salerooms at the start of Spring, the Temple of Solomon at Bonhams on March 29 (see "Victorian scale model of the Temple of Solomon", above) and this erudite copy of the Parthenon at the Chester salerooms of Halls on April 5.

UK: The factors which make for a desirable cased fish are four-fold: the case (bowfronts are most popular), the label of a good taxidermist such as Cooper, condition and (as the joker in the pack) the beast itself.

US: SETTING a new world auction record for a decoy, this sleeping Canada Goose c.1917, by renowned carver Elmer Crowell of East Harwich, Massachusetts, was estimated at $400,000-500,000 by Sotheby's, New York in a joint sale with Guyette and Schmidt of Maine, but sold to Boston dealer Stephen B. O'Brien Jr in the room on behalf of a client at $620,000 (£375,760) plus premium on January 23.

UK: THE Early Edison tinfoil phonograph which topped Christie's South Kensington's December 16 mechanical music and technical sale at £28,000.

UK: THE rare Schönner 75mm spirit fired train set of c.1902 which topped Christie's South Kensington's Trains Galore sale on December 21 at £10,000.

UK: SHOWN here is a solitary ivory button, which found itself highlighting Sotheby's closing event of 1999.

LAUNCHED this week on the internet Worldbookdealers.com is a new concept in buying rare books and has the backing of many of the world’s top antiquarian booksellers.

UK: AS yet there are no signs that game fishing is to become an endangered sport to follow hunting and shooting, not that the market for angling collectables is floundering on the bank of public indifference.

UK: NOSTRADAMUS made a career of it, as have a host of soothsayers through the ages, but many of them were less prophetic than a one-off special edition of the Daily Mail printed more than 70 years ago.

UK: Vectis, the Stockton-on-Tees auctioneers hosted their monthly sale at The Royal National Hotel in London on September 8.

UK: IT is about as accurate as a relief map moulded from pearlware could be, but why, assembled dealers and collectors at Sotheby’s Gleneagles were asking themselves, was the title of the country to the piece, left, inscibed upside down?