Auction round-up: October's prized lots
This month's finds include a rare Rolex, a silver sword and a goblet fit for a Queen
The UK has a thriving auction scene, with a diverse range of collectible pre-owned items to be found in salerooms up and down the country.
One such auction house, Fellows, in Birmingham, is one of the UK's oldest, and holds more than 100 sales a year. This month's include the Designer Collection auction, on 10 October – featuring an Hermes apple-green Swift Birkin 35 handbag (£6,500-£8,500) – and, on 25 October, a watch sale that includes a limited-edition Zenith Elite Vintage 1955 (£2,400-£3,400).
From the same era, a Rolex Submariner with a very rare 3-6-9 gloss dial fetched a world-record-breaking £192,000 at Bath's Gardiner Houlgate's last watch auction in May – and its 26 October sale offers a similar piece. This Rolex Submariner with Explorer dial – a model produced in very small numbers during the late 1950s and early 1960s – features a white Swiss dial with a very rare upper underline.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
At JS Fine Art in Banbury, there's a live online auction of pictures, silver and jewellery on 15 October. Lots include a John Anster Fitzgerald watercolour (£40,000-£60,000) and an early 19th-century Breguet open-faced pocket watch (£2,500-£3,500).
On 13 October, classic-car specialist H&H is holding an auction at the Imperial War Museum in Duxford. In the morning, look out for vintage motorcycles from the likes of Honda, Triumph and Norton, and, later in the day, vintage cars including a 1929 Rolls-Royce Phantom Allweather Tourer (£60,000-£80,000) alongside a number of Jaguar E-Type Roadsters.
For something a bit different, head to Anthony Cribb's sale of arms and armour on 4 October at Milton Hill House in Oxfordshire. Among an assortment of poignant war memorabilia, you'll find a fine silver and gilt-mounted Russian sword from the Tula Workshops (£10,000-£15,000).
Staying with that theme, Chiswick Auctions has a collection of Russian royal 18th and 19th-century glassware up for sale on 11 October. Those in the market for a historical artefact may like to bid for an engraved goblet (£500-£700) from 1770-90, commissioned for Catherine the Great and bearing her monogram alongside a double-headed Imperial eagle.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Meet Youngmi Mayer, the renegade comedian whose frank new memoir is a blitzkrieg to the genre
The Week Recommends 'I'm Laughing Because I'm Crying' details a biracial life on the margins, with humor as salving grace
By Scott Hocker, The Week US Published
-
Will Trump fire Fed chair Jerome Powell?
Today's Big Question An 'unprecedented legal battle' could decide the economy's future
By Joel Mathis, The Week US Published
-
Sri Lanka's new Marxist leader wins huge majority
Speed Read The left-leaning coalition of newly elected Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake won 159 of the legislature's 225 seats
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published