Leski Auctions

Although the Hindenburg disaster occurred more than 87 years ago, it is still often referred to as one of aviation’s greatest tragedies.

Dubbed An Eye For Beauty sale, this part II auction of a single owner collection of decorative arts and general collectables from 10am Sunday August 11 by Melbourne-based Leski Auctions at 727-729 High Street, Armadale is an excellent opportunity for buyers to pick up affordable pieces in a comprehensive range of categories.

Auction goers will be able to choose from sterling silver, Chinese and Asian art, paintings, clocks, jewellery, religious icons, porcelain, glass, lamps, furniture and military items assembled over 20 years to satisfy their collecting hunger.

It is hardly surprising that the late David Vinall became a passionate collector given that his father Laurie amassed a nationally significant array of veteran cars on their historic South Australian 32-hectare property Albion Farm.

The vehicle collection included an 1898 Mercedes Benz – the first car ever registered in Victoria. This belt and tiller driven invention ended its passenger-ferrying life in Glenorchy driving farm machinery before being fully restored and is now a proud part of South Australia’s Birdwood National Museum.  

General Sir John Monash (1865-1931) is undoubtedly one of Australia’s most iconic figures – his name perpetuated in institutions such as Melbourne’s Monash University and a major city freeway also bearing his moniker.

Regarded by some as “the only general of creative originality produced by the First World War”, Monash headed Australia’s 4^th Infantry Brigade at Gallipoli and in May 1918 became the Australian Corps commander, at the time the largest military contingent on the Western Front.

The guernsey Nathan Buckley wore when he won the 2002 Norm Smith medal for best on ground in Collingwood’s grand final loss to the Brisbane Lions (lot 265), is among more than 200 of his sporting memorabilia items the former legendary player and coach is being forced to auction from 10am on Wednesday May 1 in Melbourne.

It has taken just over 18 months and three sales but Melbourne-based Leski Auctions is finally wrapping up the auctioning of the last cameras left from the windup of Melbourne’s iconic Michael family camera museum.

Part Three – and the final sale – will be held from 10am Tuesday March 26 at 727-729 High Street, Armadale, bringing to a close more than a century of the Michael’s family business involvement with the Victorian capital.

When hearts and minds from across the globe unite as one, the results can have a lasting impact on all those around them.

So it was for Michael and Valerie Gregg – he from Guernsey in the Channel Islands and she from the New South Wales town of Wagga Wagga.

Both shared a passion for collecting and, over 65 years, built an eclectic collection of silver, Australian furniture, ceramics, jewellery and pottery unrivalled anywhere in the world.

Tragically sunk in 1912 with a large loss of life when it hit an iceberg on its maiden voyage from England to America, the passenger liner Titanic is being remembered this year in Australia through the Melbourne Museum’s unique exhibition of 200 real artefacts recovered directly from the wreck site.

In its first decorative arts and collectables auction for 2024, Leski Auctions is acknowledging its own small tribute to the ship’s memory with a breakfast cup and saucer emblazoned with the White Star Line logo (lot 1372) – the company that owned the Titanic.

Melbourne-based Leski Auctions forthcoming and last sale for 2023 contains a tribute to English pioneering aviator Amy Johnson, the first woman to fly solo from London to Australia, a feat she completed in 19 days in a Gypsy Moth on May 24, 1930 by landing at Darwin.

Sadly, her life was cut short at age 38 during World War II while transporting Royal Air Force aircraft around the country when she crashed into the River Thames and drowned.