Now that’s a good return! Beautiful 330-year-old atlas bought for £250 expected to fetch £100,000 at auction
This stunning atlas printed in 1672 and later hand coloured is set to fetch record-breaking £100,000 at auction .
The beautiful book was prudently purchased in 1949 for £250 - and now the widow of the buyer has decided to sell it.
Auctioneers say the sought-after coloured atlas is a "once in a lifetime experience" and they have never sold one for such as large sum before.
Record breaking: This stunning atlas was printed in 1672 and later hand coloured and is expected to fetch £100,000
For sale: The beautiful book was prudently purchased in 1949 for £250 - and now the widow of the buyer has decided to sell it
It begins with the 'Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain, Presenting an Exact Geography of the Kingdom of England, Scotland, Ireland and the Isles adjoyning.'
And attached to it is 'A Prospect of the most Famous Parts of the World... With many Additions never before Extant.'
The two volumes were put together and printed in 1672, some years after the great map-maker's death.
This is the first time they appeared as one and includes eight new maps of Virginia and Maryland, New England, Carolina, Jamaica and Barbados, East India, Russia and Canaan.
These atlases rarely turn up for sale and this is unique because it has been painstakingly hand-coloured - probably in the 18th century.
The colours are superbly vivid still and turn black and white outlines into a magnificent work of art.
Speed is one of the nation's greatest cartographers and modern facsimiles of his work are popular to buy in order to frame and put on walls.
Detailed: This atlas records in 96 maps the entire world and is two of cartographer John Speed's published works printed as one
Sought after: The two volumes were put together and printed in 1672, some years after great map-maker John Speed's death
The second part of the atlas was the first world atlas produced by an Englishman.
The book is being sold by Dominic Winter auctions near Cirencester, Gloucestershire.
Chris Albury from the saleroom said, 'We are all very excited.
'The atlas is absolutely sumptuous from beginning to end and is an absolute prize for map and atlas collectors alike.
Worldwide: This is the first time the two editions have appeared as one and include eight new maps of Virginia and Maryland, New England, Carolina, Jamaica and Barbados, East India, Russia and Canaan
'To see a complete uncoloured copy of this most prestigious atlas is always exciting. To see one come on the market with expert early hand colouring throughout is a once in a lifetime experience.
'Speed has been justly fashionable among map collectors worldwide for four hundred years and that makes this special atlas a collector's trophy of utmost value.
'We believe it was coloured in the 18th century and we've not found one that has sold for more than our estimate.
All mapped out: The book is being sold by Dominic Winter auctions near Cirencester, Gloucestershire 
'It would be nice to think it will be bought by a book lover rather than someone who will break it up to sell the maps individually.
'It was bought just after the war for £250 and the widow of the buyer is selling it.
'We can't find any John Speed atlas that has sold for more than our estimate which is between £70,000 and £100,000'.
Items from Hendrix, Cobain up for Auction
A strap from the guitar Jimi Hendrix burned on stage at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival is being offered by a New York City auctioneer alongside memorabilia from Michael Jackson and Kurt Cobain.
The online Gotta Have It! Rock & Roll Auction, runs through Friday.
Gotta Have It! Collectibles says the seller of the Hendrix guitar strap is the audience member who caught it at the three-day rock concert in Monterey, Calif.
The auction also includes a guitar smashed by Nirvana lead singer Cobain in 1993, the year before he died. There’s a glove worn by Jackson at a 1997 concert in London. And there’s a dress worn by Katy Perry in her video for I Kissed a Girl.
The late King of Pop’s glove is being sold by his friend and publicist Steve Manning.
Real da Vinci
An oil painting recently authenticated as the work of Leonardo da Vinci will be on display at the National Gallery in the fall as part of a larger exhibition on the Renaissance artist, the London museum said.
Salvator Mundi, which dates to around 1500, depicts a half-length figure of Christ with one hand raised in blessing and the other holding an orb.
The painting will be included in an exhibition titled: “Leonardo da Vinci: Painter of the Court of Milan,” from Nov. 9 to Feb. 5, 2012
The work is currently owned by R.W. Chandler, a consortium. Salvator Mundi, which means Savior of the World, was believed to have been lost. It was first recorded in the art collection of King Charles I of England in 1649. In 1763, it was auctioned by the son of the Duke of Buckingham. It next appeared in 1900, damaged from excessive paint overlay and its authorship unclear, when it was purchased by a British collector, Sir Frederick Cook, according to a release from Robert Simon, an art historian. Cook’s descendants sold it at auction in 1958 for 45 pounds. In 2005, it was acquired by an American estate.
Beatles pictures fetch £224,000 at auction
Photographer Mike Mitchell took the photos when he was 18
Photographs of The Beatles' first US concert, in Washington DC, have sold at a New York auction for $362,000 (£224,000).
Photographer Mike Mitchell took the pictures at the Washington Coliseum gig in 1964, when he was 18 years old.
The 50 silver gelatin prints, which were all sold individually, had been estimated to raise $100,000 (£62,000).
Photos of the Fab Four's second trip to the US that year, in Baltimore, were also sold at the Christie's auction.
Among the highlights of the sale was a backlit shot of the band that Mr Mitchell took while standing directly behind them, which sold for $68,500 (£42,300) - well above its pre-sale estimate of $2,000-$3,000 (£1,200-£1,900).
An image of Ringo Starr, capturing a rare moment as both drummer and lead singer, also sold for $8,125 (£5,000).
Christie's Cathy Elkies, said she expected bids to exceed pre-sale estimates.
"Beatles fans are fierce. To uncover this trove of images that's never been published will really excite people," she said.
The Beatles played their first US concert on 11 February 1964, two days after making their TV debut on The Ed Sullivan Show.
Mr Mitchell, who is now 65, used digital technology to scan and restore the prints for the auction, after storing the negatives for nearly 50 years in a box in his basement.
Source: BBC NEws Website
Jane Austen manuscript sells for more than 990,000 GBP at UK Auction
The moment a rare Jane Austen manuscript sold for £993,250
UK Auction house Sotheby's had originally valued the unfinished novel - entitled The Watsons - at no more than £300,000.
The manuscript, originally owned privately, was purchased by the Bodleian Libraries of Oxford.
It is thought Austen wrote the tale, about a young woman who returns home to her father's household after being brought up by a wealthy aunt, in 1804.
Richard Ovenden, from Bodleian Libraries, said they were "delighted" to have secured "such a valuable part of our literary heritage".
"We are glad it will stay now in Britain," he added, saying the "priceless manuscript" would be made available to the general public as early as this autumn.
Much of the money came from the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF), through a £894,700 grant.
"This was an unprecedented opportunity to acquire the only surviving original draft of a novel by one of our greatest and most popular writers," said Carole Souter of the NHMF.
Other organisations who donated included the Friends of the National Libraries, the Friends of the Bodleian and the Jane Austen Memorial Trust.
Sotheby's specialist Gabriel Heaton said the work was "particularly informative" because it is "very much a working draft".
Every page is littered with crossings out, revisions and additional text between some of the lines.
The BBC's arts editor Will Gompertz, who attended the auction, said there had been a very real possibility of the manuscript being sold to a foreign buyer.
This could have been the Morgan Library in New York, which already owns an eight-page element of the manuscript.
Austen published six complete novels, including Pride and Prejudice, Emma and Sense and Sensibility, before dying in 1817 at the age of 41.
With the exception of The Watsons, two draft chapters of Persuasion and two other works named Lady Susan and Sanditon, few of her draft works have survived.
The Bodleian Library already holds her Volume the First, a manuscript of Austen's juvenilia (early writings).
Source: BBC News Website
There’ll be sour grapes from the French… but it was a Brit who invented Champagne
The familiar ‘pop’ of the cork, the fizz spilling over the sides of the flute, and the bubbly dry taste — it could only be Champagne. Or should we say, ‘Merret’?
For nearly three centuries, the French have fought to ensure that only the sparkling wine made in a particular part of France can be given the name Champagne.
But could Champagne really have been introduced to the world by a 17th-century Englishman?
- Father of fizz? Christopher Merret is said to have invented Champagne
Many believe a Gloucester doctor called Christopher Merret recorded a recipe for a Champagne-style drink some 20 years before the French Benedictine monk and cellar master, Dom Pierre Perignon, who is officially recognised as the drink’s father.
In fact, so convinced is leading British wine producer Mike Roberts — whose Ridgeview vineyards are based in the
South Downs in East Sussex — that he’s spearheading a campaign to name sparkling British wine after Oxford-educated
Dr Merret.
It all dates back to a chilly December evening in 1662, when Dr Merret presented the Royal Society with an eight-page
paper detailing experiments of English cider makers, who had begun adding sugars to wine to create a bubbly, refreshingly dry drink — remarkably similar to modern-day Champagne.
Dr Merret noted how ‘our wine-coopers of recent times add vast quantities of sugar and molasses to wines to make
them drink brisk and sparkling’.
The academic, previously better known for publishing papers on smelting and tin mining, gave details of a ‘second
fermentation process’ — a chemical reaction that occurs when the bottled alcohol underwent an increase in temperature and produced carbon dioxide — that now forms a key element of Champagne-making, namely the ‘methode champenoise’.
Tradition — and the French — have always insisted Champagne was invented in 1697 by Perignon. The monk supposedly discovered it entirely by accident: the wine he bottled from the abbey’s vineyards in the autumn just before the weather turned cool never fermented properly, only doing so when temperatures started rising again in the spring.
Warm: A vineyard in the south east of England where the climate is good enough to produce grapes that can rival the French
This process — secondary fermentation — often resulted in exploding bottles thanks to the wine’s dormant yeast producing sudden carbon dioxide bubbles.
At first, Dom Perignon viewed this as a curse, referring to the new drink as ‘the devil’s wine’ — because one exploding bottle would often cause another to blow up, occasionally shattering entire cellars of wine.
But when the monk tasted the alcohol produced in bottles which didn’t explode, he started experimenting with grape varieties and realised it was a deliciously dry, fizzy drink by itself.
There are many wine experts, however, who believe the French merely copied Merret’s formula after visiting England.
According to them, the Merret tipple proved tremendously popular in London, whereupon word reached France about the new craze — and it wasn’t long before wine-makers in the north-east region of the country sent spies across the English Channel to investigate.
Champagne: The French claim that they invented bubbly 
Their excitement at the discovery, however, was equalled only by their frustration that it was an Englishmancataloguing such advances.
‘We definitely beat the French and Dom Perignon by at least 22 years,’ says Tom Stevenson, the author of Christie’s World Encyclopaedia of Champagne & Sparkling Wine, who has researched Dr Merret’s work.
In fact, he adds: ‘Merret was not only the first to describe the deliberate addition of sugar to create a sparkling wine, he was also the first person ever to use the term “sparkling wine”. The first documented mention of the equivalent French term, vin mousseux, was not until 1718.’
Moreover, on the English side of the Channel, winemakers had also started trying to produce bottles which could withstand the secondary fermentation pressure — with some help from Dr Merret for, happily, one of his many disciplines included glass-making.
He was helped by advances in British furnaces, which began using coal as the fuel of choice (instead of charcoal, after the British Navy requisitioned much of the timber to build a more powerful fleet), allowing much higher furnace temperatures, which were capable of creating stronger glass.
So sacre bleu — is it really Merret we have to thank for the reassuring sound of a cork popping?
Ridgeview’s Mike Roberts thinks so, for although Merret did not invent the technique, he dutifully logged the process and allowed other wine makers to use them.
Now he wants all British sparkling wine to be renamed ‘Merret’.
British producers are keen to mark their sparkling wines as uniquely English — in the same way the Spanish have cava and the Italians prosecco — to distinguish them from French champagne.
‘In no way do I want to call my wines Champagne,’ says Mr Roberts. ‘This is an English product and these are English vineyards.’
English sparkling wines are winning awards and increasingly replacing Champagne at glamorous events.
The Queen served sparkling wine from Chapel Down, Kent, at the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. And the Royal Family has even planted 16,700 chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier vines in Windsor Great Park with the intention of creating their own fizz.
Mr Stevenson, who found Dr Merret’s paper in the Nineties, admits the French are not happy with a discovery that questions their boasts of giving Champagne to the world.
‘When I wrote about Merret, Le Figaro, the French newspaper, accused me of “trying to burn Dom Perignon”,’ he says, wryly.
Sour grapes, perhaps?
Source: Mail Online
Rare Julius Caesar assassination coin expected to fetch 300 thousand GBP at UK Auction
A rare Roman coin that was produced to mark the assassination of Julius Caesar is expected to fetch more than £300,000 at auction.
Coins were treasured by the greats, during the Roman era.
The silver Eid Mar is about the size of a 1p piece and was minted after the murder of the emperor on the ‘Ides of March’ – March 15, 42BC.
It was produced by assassin Marcus Brutus, whose head is depicted on one side of the coin. On the other side, a liberty cap between two daggers can be seen, along with the words 'EID MAR'.
Brutus is known as a character of strength but also a traitor.
The antique item could break the record price for a Roman silver coin, if it reaches the estimate.
'As an important historic coin with a distinguished pedigree, it is one of the most desirable collectible of any kind that one could ever imagine acquiring,' said David S Michaels, director of Ancient Coins for Heritage.
It will be on display in Beverly Hills on in early September, and will be sold in California on September 7th.
Source: Metro Website
Ownership battle for 14bn GBP treasure trove of gold and jewels found in underground vaults at Indian temple
A £14billion treasure trove found beneath an ancient Indian temple has sparked a row over its ownership and how best to put the vast wealth to use.
Five underground vaults at the 16th century Padmanabhaswamy Temple in southern Kerala were prised open for the first time last month, revealing the dazzling stash.
But the archaelogical find, one of the greatest ever made in India, has triggered a fierce legal battle for custodianship, with growing calls for the redistribution of the wealth to the poor.
Glistening: A replica of the gold statue of Lord Vishnu found in the vaults of the Padmanabhaswamy Temple in southern Kerala, India The stash at the Padmanabhaswamy temple is worth billions - and the value could yet rise with vaults still to be opened
The royal family of Kerala's Travancore area, which controls the temple, has been pitted against a state High Court that has asked the state government to bring the temple under a public trust.
The current maharajah, or head of the royal family, Marthanda Verma, has since challenged the court ruling in India's Supreme Court, with the backing of some state politicians.
'The Supreme Court has stayed a Kerala High Court ruling asking the state government to take over the temple. We will go by the direction,' said Temple Affairs Minister V.S. Sivakumar.
The royal family's guardianship of the temple's wealth over close to three centuries has drawn plaudits.
But critics say the fortune could go far to stimulate Kerala's local economy and improve living standards in a country where an estimated 450million people live in poverty.
'The royal family had a great tradition of being progressive and it had been an integral part of the history and traditions of the temple.
'It would not be right to deny them any role in the temple's affairs,' said Ramesh Chennithala, chief of the Kerala unit of the ruling Congress party.
Riches: These similar treasures were discovered in another Hindu temple Offerings: Devout Hindus often bestow temples with rich gifts Obsession: Indian culture is fixated with gold, as these relics show, with some 600 tons imported annually 
A Supreme Court-appointed committee has so far opened and examined five of the six vaults but deferred opening of the sixth vault to ensure safety of the assets while armed commandos guard the site against looting.
The valuables which have been unearthed so far include a one-foot tall golden statue of the Hindu god Vishnu, which is decorated with precious gems and estimated to be worth around £70million.
An 18ft long necklace, a golden bow, a golden rope, and golden coconut shells were also among the many priceless objects which were found, along with bangles, antique silvers, gold coins and emeralds.
Record: These relics are from Thirupathy temple which, until this most recent find, was thought to be India's richest temple
Devotion: Hindus want the latest stash to remain in situ, to maintain the sanctity of the temple
However the total value of the treasure can only be determined after the final chamber - which had been sealed for nearly 140 years - is opened.
As yet, there are no pictures of the treasures themselves, as cameras are forbidden in Hindu temples.
The 500-year-old temple, dedicated to Lord Vishnu, is unique in terms of architecture and mythology, with legends of a curse protecting the long-hidden treasure.
The state government says the find will continue to remain the temple's property, mirroring the stance of Hindu groups who say the religious relics must not be removed.
Others say a museum should be established for the treasures.
'This will bring the capital city to world limelight and bring more tourists,' said temple expert Malayinkeezh Gopalakrishnan.
Tight security: Indian police walk past the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Thiruvananthapuram, capital of the southern Indian state of Kerala 
Source : Daily Mail Website
Legal battle over £2m auction of Schindler’s List: Heiress fights to keep papers that saved 1,200 from gas chamber in a museum
A legal battle has been sparked by plans to auction off the one of Oskar Schindler's original lists for £2million.
An original version of the document, which saved some 1,200 European Jews from the Nazi gas chambers, has gone up for sale on the website of a U.S. memorabilia dealer.
But Erika Rosenberg, an heiress of the Schindlers, says the historic document should be in a museum and is trying to block its sale.
Historic: This image, taken from the dealer's website, shows a page from the list up for sale Outrage: Erika Rosenberg, an heir of the Schindlers, says the list should be on display in a museum 
Quoted in the Daily Mirror, she said: 'Oskar and Emilie died poor and they desired that these documents be displayed in museums.
'It is very sad to to see this list be commercialised for millions of dollars.
'This legal fight is not for money but for social justice.'
Schindler's List, the inspiration for the 1993 film of the same name, was produced by German industrialists Oskar and Emilie Schindler.
They gave jobs in their weapons factories to some 1,200 Jewish workers to save them from Nazi concentration camps.
The website of Gary Zimet, the dealer who has arranged the sale, says the 'exceedingly rare' original copy of the list is 'the only one ever to be on the market'.
The website claims that the list's 'ironclad' provenance stems from its links to the family of Yitzhak Stern, Schindler's Jewish accountant and co-conspirator.
It is one of only four versions of the list known, it is claimed, with two housed in Yad Vashem, the holocaust museum in Jerusalem, Israel, and the only other in the U.S. Holocaust Museum.
'This version of the list (there are seven all told) is the penultimate, being 14 pages in length and listing 801 names, dated April 18, 1945,' the website says.
'A more poignant and historic World War 2 relic cannot be imagined. This is the opportunity of a lifetime to acquire an item of truly incredible magnitude.'
Heroes: Oskar and Emilie Schindler died poor in Argentina after leaving their lives in Germany behind when the war ended 
According to the Daily Mirror, a previous auction for the list was suspended in 2010 after a lawsuit was taken out by Ms Rosenberg, 60.
The daughter of Germans who fled to Argentina in 1940, Ms Rosenberg met Emilie Schindler in Buenos Aires in 1990.
When Mrs Schindler died childless in 2001, she chose Ms Rosenberg as one of five heiresses.
Ms Rosenberg had sought to block the sale of the list on copyright grounds.
She lost the legal battle, but now she and her lawyers are investigating the possibility of appealing to an international court.
How an organised crime gang in Ireland is ‘masterminding illegal trade in rhino horns’
An organised crime gang from Ireland is masterminding illegal trade in rhino horns around the world.
The group, believed to be from the Traveller community, are actively targeting auction rooms, galleries, museums, zoos and private collections in Europe to steal the rare specimens.
And with contacts in North and South America, South Africa, China and Australia, the gang is then going on to exploit the lucrative legal trade by selling them on for up to 200,000 euros a time.
Illegal trade: Rhino horns can net the crime gangs that run the trade as much as 200,000 euros each
Key players in the group are also involved in drug smuggling, distributing fake power tools, tarmac fraud and money laundering.
Europol and Ireland's Garda issued the warning about the gang which it said was a significant player in the theft and smuggling of rhino horns on top of other more opportunistic crimes as they travel across Europe.
The police said the tarmac and power tool fraud was allowing the gang to camouflage their trade in rhino horns.
Depending on size and quality, one horn can be worth anything from 25,000 euro (£22,400) to 200,000 euro (£179,000).
Europol also warned that some of the gang members were becoming highly sophisticated in money laundering, international shipping and travel, communications and forged documents.
They said some of the gang were willing to resort to theft, aggravated burglary, intimidation and violence if necessary.
Gardai and the international police force have called for dedicated investigations in countries where the gang has links to determine the scale of the organised crime threat.
Police forces have also been urged to swap intelligence on the gang and warn people who own rhino horns or put them on display that they may be a target.
Rhinos are often poached for their horns, made of keratin and sold on the black market for ornamental or medicinal purposes, particularly in Asia and for Chinese herbal medicine.
The two African species and the Sumatran rhinoceros have two horns, while the Indian and Javan rhinoceros have a single horn.
Boom to bust: Statue stolen from church during the Blitz to return to its rightful home
It has had an astonishing 70-year journey across Europe but at last this 'priceless' sculpture is to be returned to its rightful owners.
The 400-year-old bust of eminent botanist and physician
Dr Peter Turner was thought to be lost forever after being dramatically stolen from a church badly hit by the Germans during the Blitz in 1941.
Thieves stepped through the rubble and looted the famous Medieval St Olave's Church in the City of London on the night of April 17 taking the artefact with them from its damaged nave.
Lost and found: The 'priceless' 17th-century sculpture of Dr Peter Turner will be returned home after it was looted from a bombed church during the Blitz
But the 1614 statue - worth an estimated £70,000 - has been recovered after a keen-eyed curator at the Museum of London got wind of its impending auction and tipped off church officials.
And it is now due to take up its original position in the medieval church, where England's most famous diarist Samuel Pepys is also buried.
The Art Loss Register (ALR), an organisation which specialises in tracking down stolen pieces and resolving art-related disputes, took on the case and the alabaster bust was withdrawn from the sale.
An investigation later revealed a chain of previous buyers including Belgian art trader Paul de Grande who bought the work from an ecclesiastical dealer in the Netherlands.
Destroyed: The remains of St Olave's Church in the City of London after being hit by a German high explosive bomb on April 17 1941, which allowed thieves to sneak in and take the valuable bust
The Dutch dealer had acquired the work from a man going by the name of Gray Dench.
Christopher Marinello, ALR executive director and general counsel, said research showed this name was false.
'I do not believe that de Grande or the Dutch dealer knew that this bust was stolen,' Marinello said.
To the surprise of experts, the bust had travelled to the Netherlands with documentation detailing its history up until the 1941 bombing.
Returned: The sculpture will be placed at its original resting place, close to where English diarist Samuel Pepys (pictured) is buried
Church officials were stunned to find the provenance stated 'Presumably the bust of Dr Turner was salvaged from the ruins (of the Church) but its history since the Blitz is undocumented.'
However, investigators believe the artwork was stolen rather than salvaged after the bombing.
Returned: The sculpture will be placed at its original resting place, close to where English diarist Samuel Pepys (pictured) is buried
ALR said the Dutch dealer declined to comment while Mr de Grande claimed he did not call St Olave's because wartime photographs of its bombed state led him to believe it had been destroyed.
Mr Marinello said it would take some time to set the bust back in its original position but it is expected to be in place later this year.
'If you visit the church, you can still see the space where it once hung,' he added.
'It's a very empty space and I think the church will really be made complete when it is put back in that particular spot.'
The Reverend Oliver Ross, rector of St Olave Hart Street, said its return was a 'cause for great celebration'.
'We are deeply grateful to the Art Loss Register for their diligent and generous efforts on our behalf, as well as to Dreweatts and the two dealers concerned for enabling such a happy end to Dr Turner's long years of exile,' he added.
The missing work had formed part of a larger memorial erected by Dr Turner's wife around 1614.
His remains are buried underneath the church.
Source: Mail Online Website