A profitable line in toy-train sets

Although expected to fetch £120£150, a Hornby 0-gauge electric passenger train set, in mint condition and in its original box, eventually made £480 at Whyte's of Dublin last Saturday. The company's self-proclaimed "eclectic" sale also saw a Hornby 0-gauge"Metropolitan" electric locomotive with two coaches (estimate £100-£120) go for £440 and a late 19th-century Irish leprechaun-style doll sell for £160.

Other curiosities which performed well included two 1923 threatening letters written by the IRA to a Dundalk district justice (sold for £280) and a 1934 Irish Free State versus Belgium World Cup soccer programme (£440).

Curio display table top seller at Griffeen Lodge

The contents sale conducted by Mealy's at Griffeen Lodge, Lucan, Co Dublin, earlier this month saw a hand-painted satinwood curio display table make the day's highest price of £6,000. A pair of French kingwood and marquetry tables en chiffonier sold for £5,250 and a Regency-period mahogany sofa table with rosewood cross-banding fetched £5,000.

Among pictures, a battle scene with Turks on horseback and its companion, both by C. Bellier, did the best, selling for £3,400. Norman J. McCraig's pair of works, Sunset on the Liffey and Evening on the Liffey, made just £100 less. Both an Edwardian satinwood display cabinet and a pair of Victorian gilt girandole wall mirrors went for the same price of £3,200.

Georgian candlesticks are sold for £3,200

A PAIR of Irish George II silver candlesticks, circa 1740, sold for £3,200 and an Irish silver rococo-style dish-ring made in Dublin earlier this century made £1,000 at Tuesday's fine art and furniture sale at Thomas Adam's of Blackrock, Co Dublin. A set of eight Victorian Chippendale-style dining chairs fetched £2,500 and a 19th-century Swiss burr walnut-cased 12-tune music box sold for £2,000.