AUCTIONS

The first dedicated sale of collectable Ronson lighters on Wednesday (5pm) will be a market-maker. The 60 lots were collected during countrywide Ronson memorabilia roadshows led by Eric Knowles. Ronson is celebrating its centenary following its acquisition by Howard Hodgson, the former funeral parlour whizz-kid. He is promoting Ronson collectables to emphasise the firm's tradition.

Estimates are cautious. They range from pounds 10-pounds 15 for a 1950 Standard petrol- flint chromed brass pocket lighter, profusely engraved with a flowering urn and scrolls, to pounds 700-pounds 1,000 for a deco-style cigarette-box touch-tip table lighter in the form of a bar with black bartender shaking a cocktail. Missing from the sale (at the Imagination Gallery, 25 Store Street, South Crescent, London WC1): the famous Ronson Charlie Chaplin lighter of 1920. Only three are known. They are thought to be worth over pounds 10,000 each. Auctioneers: Special Auction Services (01734-712949).

Not an auction but a once-only sale: paintings from the estate of Lucy Carrington Wertheim (d1971), the charismatic London gallerist of the Thirties who used to give away armfuls of paintings if she thought their display would attract converts to contemporary art. In the days before the Arts Council and popular broadcasts about art she lobbied curators, critics and trustees. She gave Salford Art Gallery the equivalent of an entire exhibition.

Examples of prices at the sale (at Duncan Campbell Contemporary Art, London, 29 July - 16 August): pounds 30-pounds 600 for flat, stylised neo-Romantic landscapes by the Thirties artist David Gomman; pounds 10-pounds 10,000 for works by Phelan Gibb, the British artist influenced by Picasso. The pounds 10 is for his drawing of a house and tree, the pounds 10,000 for a stylised 1917 landscape. Duncan Campbell: 15 Thackeray Square, Kensington Square, London W8 (0171- 937 8665).

About 320 music hall, popular and dance 78 rpm records are temptingly without estimate at Christie's South Kensington's sale of mechanical music, Wednesday (2pm). There is also an Edison disc, nine Filmophone coloured records and about 50 operatic and classical records. This is the kind of lot that could languish unsold if collectors decide to sunbathe instead of attending a stuffy old sale. But it would take only one rare music hall gem and a pair of rival bidders to send it through the roof.