Leski Auctions

Engineering and collecting appear to have been the two great loves of the late Lester Kingsley, who died in 2020 aged 95, and now his collection of stamps and postcards will be sold as part of Melbourne-based Leski Auctions forthcoming Stamps, Coins and Postal History sale from 12pm Tuesday May 10 at 727-729 High Street, Armadale.

Raised in a village in Sussex, England, Lester’s first collection as a boy was John Player cigarette cards featuring aircraft of the Royal Air Force.

No matter what collectors might be looking for this year, they will be sure to find something to their liking at Leski Auctions forthcoming Decorative Arts & Collectables two-day sale from 10am Saturday March 26 when more than 1500 items go under the hammer at 727-729 High Street, Armadale.

Items in session one range from sterling silver to porcelain and ceramics, glass, jewellery, Chinese and Asian art, and antiquities.

Collecting art and wine must have seemed like a luxury to Polish Jew Martin Sachs after the horrors of the World War II German Mauthausen Labour Camp – where he was one of 500 to survive from the 5000 men and boys sent there.

Only 20 at the time he was liberated in May 1945 by United States forces, having already lost his father David at Belzec death camp in 1942 and his mother Hannah at Stutthof concentration camp three years later.

Returning to Poland, in 1948 Martin migrated to Australia where he became a successful builder and developer.

Stamps, coins and postal history are the subject of Melbourne-based Leski Auctions last sale for 2021.

To be held from 10am Thursday December 9 at 727-729 High Street, Armadale, the auction has a larger than usual range of coins, banknotes and medals including an interesting collection of Australian half sovereigns (lots 26-51), featuring Queen Victoria young heads from 1871, and sovereigns (lots 52-89).

Given their rich Australian heritage and enthusiasm for collecting Australiana, it is not surprising that the East Melbourne home of husband and wife team Gary and Genevieve Morgan - of Morgan Gallup Poll fame - is a living museum to Australian artworks, sculptures, pottery, wood carvings and furnishings.

Now, collectors worldwide will have the opportunity to obtain one or more items in this collection when Leski Auctions offers Part One for sale from 6.30pm Tuesday December 7 at The Gallery, Tonic House, 386 Flinders Lane, Melbourne.

An abandoned Western Australian goldfields town called Malcolm has become the focus of Melbourne-based Leski Auctions two-day Australian& Historical sale because of a rare 19^th century brooch that came from the town and is now up for auction.

The brakes are off for Leski Auctions as they emerge from Melbourne’s sixth COVID-19 lockdown – that resulted in the city achieving the unenviable record of “world lockdown capital” with a total of 263 days of restrictions – as they head towards an international Decorative Arts & Collectables sale from 10am each day on Saturday November 6 and Sunday November 7 at 727-729 High Street, Armadale.

Leading Australian artist and graphic designer the late Joe Greenberg provides an unavoidable reminder of the impending 2021 Australian Football League and National Rugby League Grand Finals and Melbourne’s forthcoming Spring Racing Carnival through his football posters and artwork as auction goers to Leski Auctions Sporting Memorabilia gather for its online auction from 10am Monday September 20.

Auctioneer Charles Leski will address an empty room as buyers log in online or via absentee or telephone bidding for the 856 items on offer.

Items coming to auction from the Foster Collection at the magnificent 1930s Mount Eliza mansion Dendron House are a true reflection of its beauty.

The home has been in the Foster family for six decades and each of the items being offered by Leski Auctions from 2pm Sunday September 5 is, in the words of the auction house, “new to the auction market”.

Each lot has been in the family for years with many arriving with Dr Bryan Foster and his family in the 1930s when they arrived from England.

Around the time that Captain James Cook was exploring the east coast of Australia, London silversmith Emick Romer was making a sterling silver epergne centrepiece stunning in its beauty and now considered extremely rare.

The son of Norwegian goldsmith Michelson Romer, Emick was apprenticed in 1749 and is believed to have left Norway sometime after 1751.