SOUTHAMPTON, Pa. – When Wall Street heads south, investors head straight to precious metals – especially silver and gold coins like the ones to be auctioned by Stephenson’s Auctioneers & Appraisers on Friday, Aug. 20th, commencing at 4 p.m. Eastern Time. More than 500 lots will be offered in the sale, with the great majority being the types of coveted American gold and silver coins that are so highly sought after by today’s collectors. Highlights among the gold issues are ... Read The Full Story

A fine Leeds Pottery horse dating back to around 1825, estimated at £8,000 to £12,000, is to be sold at Bonhams Auctioneers in their Fine British Pottery and Porcelain sale in Bond Street, London on Wednesday 8th September. The horse a rare example of white pearlware with a black mane, tail and hooves with an ornate orange bridle decorated with blue florets stands on a green base majestically poised with ears pricked. The horses were originally made for veterinary surgeons, saddlers ... Read The Full Story

Freeman’s, America’s oldest auction house, is announced that it will be offering the Estate of Joseph S. Sorger on 5 October, 2010 in Philadelphia. The collection from his home at 2003 Delancey Place was amassed over 70 years and spans the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Among the more than 450 works of art to be auctioned are excellent examples of American Classical furniture, American portraits, and Chinese bronzes and porcelain. Like the opulence of the American Classical furniture ... Read The Full Story

(West Palm Beach, FL) Kay and Bill Puchstein, owners of the West Palm Beach Antiques Festival, are feeling pretty smart these days. Bucking the traditional summer schedule of no antiquing in Florida in the summer has proved to be good thing for the Festival, the dealers and the customers. Attendance was up again at the August 7, 8 Show and the Early Buyer’s program hit a new high. By changing the Early Buyer’s admission from $25 to $10 for Saturday morning entry more than tripled the ... Read The Full Story

David Gill, archaeologist, reflects on the fate of antiquities in the Kuwait National Museum during the 1990 invasion by Iraq. Professor Donny George, the former Director-General of the National Museum in Baghdad, Iraq has released a statement through “Looting Matters” about his role after the invasion of Kuwait. This personal account sheds some light into what was happening in Kuwait immediately after the occupation. George states that in the build-up to the invasion of ... Read The Full Story

A very rare signed scrimshawed whale’s tooth from Charles Darwin’s voyage on HMS Beagle, 1832-36, (£30,000-50,000) is one of the most intriguing items in the forthcoming Travel and Exploration sale at Bonhams on 15 September. It belonged to Private Thomas Burgess, a Royal Marine on board HMS Beagle for the entirety of its four year voyage and has come down through the family. The tooth is the work of a fellow Marine on board HMS Beagle, James Adolphus Bute, who is known to have ... Read The Full Story

Once dismissed as merely an afterthought, antique city maps are now an emerging segment of the collectible antique map market. Antique maps illustrate a window into the past, and city maps offer detailed layouts from hundreds of years ago that are often entirely different than what is found in today’s metropolises. Often hand-colored, the maps themselves are now viewed as unique works of art with significant historical value. However, most antique maps of cities have often been ... Read The Full Story

The first auction to focus on the work of legendary jewelry Andrew Grima, since his death in 2007, will be presented by Bonhams New York on October 19th. British Royal jewelry, designer and artisan, Grima was the foremost modern jewelry designer in the West End of London in the 1960s and 1970s with clients including Queen Elizabeth, Princess Margaret, Princess Anne, The Duke of Edinburgh, Barbara Hepworth and Jacqueline Onassis. Grima gained recognition following the 1961 Exhibition of ... Read The Full Story

On October 7th, Bonhams New York will present a special auction devoted to Vintage mechanical musical instruments and automata. Featuring a number of rare turn-of-the-century orchestrions, including $4 million of property from the famed Mark Yaffe Collection, this sale is cause for huge excitement in collecting circles. An orchestrion is a generic name for a machine that plays music and is designed to sound like an orchestra or band. For inside the magnificent cases, real working ... Read The Full Story

The 20th Century Decorative Arts Department at Bonhams & Butterfields, as part of its ongoing design lecture series, is pleased to announce a gallery talk with Tripp Carpenter (Arthur Espenet Carpenter III) on Saturday, October 2, 2010, at 2:00 pm. The event, which will be held at the firm’s prestigious Sunset Boulevard galleries in Los Angeles, is planned to coincide with the auction preview for the 20th Century Decorative Arts sale on October 5th. The preview will feature ... Read The Full Story

Bonhams announces the sale of an extremely rare game, ‘The Game of War’ to be sold on the 13th October 2010 in Knightsbridge in the Chess, Playing Cards and Games auction. Dating from 1890, this intricate 600 piece game is estimated to sell for £1,500-£2000, and was designed to train British army officers at a time of uncertainty in the years leading up to the outbreak of The First World War in 1914. It was common knowledge that War was coming, but no-one could predict exactly ... Read The Full Story

A little known American Indian archive will be unveiled at the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) through October 24, 2010. Ancestors and Descendants: Ancient Southwestern America at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century will be the first comprehensive exhibition of nineteenth century photography, southwestern artifacts and archival research from the George Hubbard Pepper Native American Archive at Tulane University. In collaboration with Tulane’s Middle American Research Institute (MARI) ... Read The Full Story

On Monday, July 26th at 6:00 pm, Clarke Auction will sell over 350 lots consigned from estates throughout the Greater New York area. Midcentury Modern includes a desk and credenza by Jens Risom, a pair of Dorothy Draper bachelor’s chests, a Roche Bobois leather and suede sofa; Walnut Stereo Speakers on Saarinen-type Bases; a LaVerne coffee table; a Springer Snakeskin Lamp, unique glass mosaic-topped decorative coffee tables, one signed; a possibly Baughman Burlwood Desk, and other ... Read The Full Story

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian on the National Mall will host a three-day Living Earth Festival, Friday, Aug. 6, through Sunday, Aug. 8, that acknowledges Native contributions to managing the environment and sustaining lifeways and foodways. The festival will include an outdoor fresh-produce market, fine-art market, symposium, hands-on activities for kids and families, a cooking competition and concert. The museum is uniquely positioned to be a point of ... Read The Full Story

More than 1,100 of the world’s best coin and paper money dealers will be buying, selling and trading numismatic items during the Boston World’s Fair of Money held by the non-profit American Numismatic Association (ANA). The event, August 10-14 at the Hynes Convention Center, will be the largest coin show of the year and visitors will be able to attend hourly presentations from numismatists on a wide range of subjects. The show will include museum-quality exhibits from the ... Read The Full Story