AUCTIONS

The mystery of the three round green plastic Ekco radios deepens. The model AD65, launched in 1935, sells to design buffs for pounds 350-pounds 500 in brown or black. But the three green ones are unique - cases only, made for a London plastics exhibition. Two are in private hands, one fetched pounds 19,688 at Academy Auctions, London, two years ago, and now a battered fourth has appeared in Christie's South Kensington's sale of mechanical music, Thursday (2pm). It was spotted in a deceased's estate in the Highlands and is estimated at a modest pounds 800-pounds 1,200.

South Ken's Oriental sale, Thursday (10.30am) offers a bizarre piece of erotica: a Chinese white glazed-biscuit group of a couple straddling a table while in congress, the woman simultaneously pounding grain in a mortar and showing a rattle to a baby held by an attendant. Christie's says the vendor appeared embarrassed. It reckons the piece is 60- 80 years old; presumably it illustrates the theme "A woman's work is never done". Est: pounds 300-pounds 500.

A first millennium BC brick imprinted with the name of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, is est pounds 300-pounds 500 by Bonhams, Tuesday. The King gave Saddam Hussein the idea for personalised bricks.

For auctions and fairs nationwide, see page 15