Special Auction Services

Founded in Newbury, Berkshire in 1991, Special Auction Services host a wide range of specialist collectors’ sales throughout the year.

As well as regular antiques and collectables sales, they hold tailored auctions focusing on categories such as toys, music and entertainment, cameras, sporting memorabilia, cigarette cards, postcards, jewellery, coins and watches. Their annual Trains Galore sale takes place in December.

Since 2006, the firm had been run by auctioneers Thomas Plant and Neil Shuttleworth.


img_26-3.jpg

Militaria news in brief: eye catching results

16 September 2024

A look at unusual lots that stood out in recent auctions

Doll automaton

Doll raises the baa at specialist auction

06 May 2024

This rare 1880s Jean Roullet ‘Le Berger Watteau’ shepherdess with lamb automaton starred when the second part of one of the largest doll collections on offer in recent times went under the hammer.

img_26-2.jpg

Bidders detect Grendey quality in pair of chairs

08 April 2024

Giles Grendey (1696-1780) was a well known English cabinetmaker with a workshop in Clerkenwell, a member of the Joiners company rising to Master.

img_18-1.jpg

Dolls from full house dubbed a ‘collector’s dream’

04 March 2024

What Special Auction Services (20% buyer’s premium) in Newbury billed as “the largest and most valuable doll collection to been seen at auction for 25 years” went under the hammer on February 22 with a further slice to come in April.

img_30-4.jpg

Fantasy mag key to creating Games Workshop empire

12 February 2024

Once considered to be the refuge of geeky teenagers, fantasy and sci-fi role playing and tabletop gaming is now hugely popular, with various celebs keen to proclaim their passion for all things orc and elf.

House of Commons dispatch box

Betty Boothroyd’s dispatch box and brooch entice bidders at memorabilia auction

23 January 2024

Politics fans and admirers competed for items from the estate of Betty Boothroyd (1929-2023), the first female Speaker of the House of Commons.

img_13-3.jpg

The 70s to 90s: ‘People are buying their childhoods back’

22 January 2024

The appeal of more modern toys for the latest collectors buying based on nostalgia for childhood playthings was underlined by a large group of Transformers offered at Special Auction Services on January 17.

img_13-1.jpg

Fortune tellers and Egyptian tombs – all for just a penny

22 January 2024

Penny in the slot machines known as a ‘Working Model’ came in many guises but, essentially, they all formed a large upright cabinet with a glass window top section.

img_13-4.jpg

Extensive dolls collection came from house where whole rooms were crammed full of displays

22 January 2024

Special Auction Services is selling what it bills as ‘the largest and most valuable doll collection to been seen at auction for 25 years’.

img_22-1.jpg

Morden map cards lead the way at Newbury auction

22 January 2024

Auction offered near-complete example of the set that also formed a first pocket atlas of England and Wales

Iraq banknote

Banknotes sale is best ever at Newbury auction house SAS

06 November 2023

Special Auction Services (SAS) achieved its most valuable ever auction last month, selling banknotes.

img_10-1.jpg

Paul Daniels sale creates touch of magic

09 January 2023

Collection amassed by the popular TV magician leaves bidders spellbound as nearly all items get away

img_15-2.jpg

“We had lots of interest – he had everything going for him": Early Steiff teddy put in the picture

05 December 2022

This wonderful photo taken in 1914 shows the Coghill family plus a rather hairy friend: a rare large Steiff centre-seam teddy bear c.1906.

Louise Powell charger

Bidders embrace best of Lalla’s Wedgwood Arts and Crafts revival

12 September 2022

This large 21in (54cm) early 20th century Arts and Crafts charger was painted by Louise Powell (1865-1956) for Wedgwood.

img_17-2.jpg

The small world of Gamda toys

22 August 2022

Special Auctions Services (25% buyer’s premium) in Newbury sold the collection of John Garside last month.

Royal Doulton figure of Sir Winston Churchill

Single-owner collection of Winston Churchill memorabilia offered in Newbury

30 July 2022

Special Auction Services is holding an auction in Newbury on August 9-10 that will feature the first part of a single-owner collection of Winston Churchill memorabilia.

Dolls made by Bergen-Belsen victims after liberation

‘Liberation dolls’ come to auction in Newbury

09 May 2022

When the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was liberated on April 15, 1945, a party of British Red Cross nurses and doctors stayed and tended those they could help back to health.

img_14-1.jpg

Two versions of the Compass

18 April 2022

It was supposedly as a result of a bet whether it was possible to make a camera that could fit into a cigarette packet that Noel Pemberton Billing (1881-1948) began work on a miniature, collapsible camera that would accept 35mm film.

img_13-1.jpg

The world in stereo

18 April 2022

The sale of Photographica & Cameras at Special Auction Services in Newbury on April 26 features this complete set of 'Tour Of The World' stereoviews by the Keystone View Company of Meadville, Pennsylvania.

img_13-1.jpg

Dee family’s animal magic

28 March 2022

Henry William Dee, the son of Soho silversmith Thomas William Dee (c.1792- 1869), made a speciality of producing silver novelties for Garrard, Leuchars & Son and Asprey’s and other retail goldsmiths. There was real genius here and the patterns for many were patented.

News

Categories