Auctions: Scene by Shakespeare?
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Your support makes all the difference.BOB GODFREY's cartoon animation celluloids (cels) of love-making on a bicycle enliven Sotheby's sale of literature, illustration and animation, Wednesday (11am). This is the first sale dedicated to British animators (Christie's South Kensington's sale of mainly Disney cels totalled 94 per cent in April). Sets of three or four Godfrey cels are est pounds 800-pounds 1,200.
The main sale, Tuesday (11am), has plenty for the scholarly, curious or merely prurient: diaries written by the actress Diana Dors, vituperative letters by Marlene Dietrich, a secret wartime file annotated by Churchill - and a manuscript from the turn of the 16th century, used as binder's packing in a book and containing a theatrical fragment resembling a scene from Shakespeare's Henry IV part I (pounds 10,000-pounds 12,000.)
PLINK-PLONK
Christie's South Kensington, Tuesday (2pm) offers another mechanical music sale. Big disc (19 5/8 in) Polyphon musical boxes of 1890-1900, pushed to pounds 5,000 or so by the Japanese in the late Eighties can now be had for pounds 2,000-pounds 3,000. The bigger the disc radius, the longer the musical comb that straddles it - and the more notes it can accommodate. There are some fairly big ones in the sale. A 15 5/8 in is est pounds 1,500-pounds 2,500. A tiny 5 3/4 in Symphonion brand is est pounds 100-pounds 200.
An honest local dealer returned lot 62 to its Scottish owner, having discovered the domed wooden case he had bought from her for a fiver contained a rare Bettini Edison spring motor phonograph of around 1899, now est pounds 1,500-pounds 2,000.
COUNTRYWIDE
Bath: Phillips' biggest-ever sale of Doulton stoneware, a private collection of 1,000 pieces. Next Saturday (9am). Viewing Friday, 8.30pm (0225 310609).
Warrington: Royal Mail no-reserve sale of contents of returned parcels at Littons, Guardian Street, Tuesday, 10.30am (0925 572199).
Penzance: Antique furniture, decorations and collectables, Thursday and Friday (10am). A mahogany dining table is est pounds 1,000-pounds 2,000. Sundials, Hardy fishing reels, musical boxes. David Lay (0736 61414).
Poole: Stamp auction at the Arts Centre includes overprinted Victorian pounds 5 lilac and black, est pounds 250, next Saturday (2.30pm). Interstamps (0202 515756).
Malmesbury: Contents of a drapery shop, office equipment, fax machines; no-reserve Customs sale, Tuesday (10am) at Hilditch, Gloucester Road Trading Estate (0666 822577).
Putney, London: Lost, stolen strayed, offered no-reserve by the police: bicycles, jewellery, car stereos Thursday (9.30am). Dow Lloyd, 118 Putney Bridge Road, SW15 (081-788 7777).
Billingshurst: Antiquarian and modern books, including private collection of horse-racing ephemera, at New Pound Business Park, Wisborough Green, Wednesday (2pm). John Bellman (0403 700858).
Bath: Jewellery, unredeemed pledges, at Old Malthouse, Comfortable Place, Upper Bristol Road, Wednesday (12 noon). Lead soldiers Thursday (10.30am). Gardiner Houlgate (0225 447933).
Information on provincial auctions by Antiques Trade Gazette (071-930 4957), Government Auction News (071-734 8291-4), Saleroom and Auction Monthly (081-336 0393).
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