AUCTIONS

A collection of nearly 50 pairs of old shoes - almost all ladies' - has been consigned to Phillips's costume sale next Tuesday (11am) by Andrew McIntosh Patrick, managing director of the Fine Art Society. Mr McIntosh Patrick is better known for his collections of Scottish paintings and the works of Christopher Dresser, the Victorian designer. The sale is intended to make more room for Dresser's metalware and pottery in Mr McIntosh Patrick's small London flat.

He bought the shoes at second-hand clothes shops in Edinburgh and at auction over the past 20 years. "By 1988 I was bidding pounds 3,000 at Sotheby's for a pair of shoes - the price of a Dresser toastrack - and realised I had a potentially serious addiction," he says. "After all, I knew next to nothing historically or scientifically about shoes. They were just pretty things."

He hopes to recoup the pounds 3,000 he spent at Sotheby's. The pair he bought there - mid-18th century round-toed ladies' shoes of pale pink, blue and ivory brocaded silk - are estimated to fetch between pounds 3,000 and pounds 3,500 in this week's sale.

Mr McIntosh Patrick almost refused to pay the pounds 10 asked by a shopkeeper for a pair of Twenties salmon-pink gentlemen's boots until a friend pointed out that he had just paid pounds 65 for a new pair of shoes to wear himself. The Balmoral boots, now known to have been exhibited at the 1922 Shoe and Leather Fair, carry an estimate of pounds 400-pounds 500.

The lowest estimate is pounds 100-pounds 150, for a lot comprising a pair of Oxford brogues and two other pairs of men's shoes. The space vacated by the shoes in Mr McIntosh Patrick's flat has already been occupied by Scottish paintings, Victorian art objects - "and the camels, of course", he confides.

The Thunderbirds puppet series is re-shown on BBC television and the creators are begged to attend science- fiction conventions around the world and to name their price for the puppets. What can this mean? Simple: time to sell.

One of Thunderbirds' creators, Sylvia Anderson, has consigned more than 100 lots, including the original Lady Penelope puppet, to Phillips's sale of toys and dolls on Tuesday (12 noon). They are expected to fetch nearly pounds 100,000, with Lady Penelope alone estimated at pounds 20,000-pounds 25,000. Or would you rather have a collection of eight pairs of puppet hands and five odd ones, est pounds 20-pounds 30?

Eighteenth-century wine bottles are becoming more collectable. They must have a seal - a blob of glass on the shoulder that was impressed when molten with the name of the bottle's cellar, college, stately home or owner. One stamped "Loop/1777" is estimated to fetch pounds 100-pounds 150, one of a dozen lots of bottles at Christie's South Kensington's, Thursday (10.30am).

What happened to Gladstone when he advocated home rule before an audience of 60,000 Irish Protestants? The unexpected answer is in a letter of his, estimated at pounds 200-pounds 250, in the Bonhams book and manuscript sale on Wednesday (10.30am).

Don't be caught out by the title of Christie's South Kensington's new sale, "Cricket and Other Sports", on Friday (11am). It replaces "Traditional Sports" because there is now more cricket gear than any other. Football gear is always sold at Christie's Scotland, whose next sale is on 8 November.

Among the Rolls-Royces and Ferraris likely to fetch pounds 20,000 or more at Coys of Kensington's sale at the Royal Agricultural Halls, London SW1, on Tuesday (7pm) is a completely restored 1938 Austin Seven, without reserve, estimated at pounds 4,000-pounds 6,000.

For countrywide auctions and fairs, see pages 14 and 15