Features

Among the best-performing lots at the Woolley & Wallis (25/12% buyer’s premium) Ceramics & Glass sale was a rare Wedgwood black basalt seal.

Estimated at £400-600, a Meissen chinoiserie decorated porcelain snuff box took £12,000 at Bellmans (22% buyer’s premium) in West Sussex.

Pictured here are two early English pottery tankards – both of them documentary pieces.

A Bamfords (20% buyer’s premium) sale included this 3¼in (34cm) tall Chelsea figure from the Red Anchor Senses set created by the Low Countries sculptor Joseph Willems (1710-66), in c.1755.

At a recent sale at Stamford Auction Rooms (20% buyer’s premium) in Lincolnshire this pair of mid-19th century Staffordshire red squirrels sold for a surprise £2000.

Derbyshire auction house Hansons (25% buyer’s premium) sold memorabilia this summer worn by two Manchester United favourites of different eras: George Best and David Beckham.

Before match programmes grew into the glossy mini-magazines of today they were relatively simple affairs – most just a single sheet printed on both sides.

Stan Anderson (1934-2018) was a north-eastern football stalwart playing as captain for a hat-trick of local clubs.

An England blue velvet and silver braid cap awarded to Sir Alfred Ramsey sold for a mid-estimate £3400 at Lacy Scott & Knight (22.5% buyer’s premium) in Bury St Edmunds.

Not all football memorabilia has to be Manchester United or early FA Cup, say, to catch the eye of buyers.

Maurice Setters (1936-2020) is perhaps best known to many football fans as the assistant to Jack Charlton as Republic of Ireland enjoyed success in the 1980s-90s.

A humble table tennis bat bought at a car boot sale in Surrey for £3.50 served up a surprise at Hansons’ (25% buyer’s premium) London monthly auction on September 25.

A painting of a pugilist will now be researched by the dealer who bought it at auction thanks to his collecting fascination with the early days of the sport

If you wanted to keep the strings of a tennis racket taut, you could do with a tennis racket press – a device consisting of a frame closed by a spring mechanism.

A pair of early 19th century Staffordshire pearlware figures modelled after bare-knuckle boxers Tom Cribb and Tom Molineaux who fought for a ‘world title’ of sorts is estimated at £3000-5000 in Tennants’ Autumn Fine Sale on November 13 in Leyburn.

A silver tea service presented to Sir Stanley Matthews (1915-2000) to mark his record England cap has been sold by a Hampshire dealer.

A group of “rare and interesting” 20th century cycling ephemera relating primarily to the Olympic Games offered by Catherine Southon (20% buyer’s premium) came from the collection of cycling journalist David Taylor (1937-2020).

The highlight of an impressive range of football memorabilia offered by specialist Graham Budd (20.5% buyer’s premium) was the earliest Manchester United medal sold at auction.

This reticulated Longquan celadon pear-shaped vase is one of the stars in an exhibition at Littleton & Hennessey in Duke Street, London.

Duke’s sale in Dorchester on November 25 includes this pair of Yongzheng period (1723-35) famille rose fish bowls.