Toy theatres

Actor Peter Baldwin, 74, is one of Europe’s leading collectors of toy theatres, the paper sheets of scenery and characters that are cut up and put on to toy stages.

Football programmes

Collecting football programmes has been a way of life for Swansea-based Peter Barber since he was eight years old.

Aviation prints

Colin Smith has an impressive collection of second world war, limited edition, aviation art prints. Having tracked them down since the mid-1980s, the 47-year-old has increased their value considerably by adding signatures from legendary aircrew.

Hold the front page . . . and the back and inside ones too

Some collectors are born rather than made, and Tim Hughes illustrates this well. As a schoolboy in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, he dabbled in old radios, bottles and books, visiting endless auctions.

Silver spoons

West Country fund manager Arthur Devons has amassed a hoard of early English silver spoons over 40 years which are now worth a six-figure sum.

Clarice Cliff

Midlands-based Leonard Griffin, 58, has amassed some 50 pieces of Clarice Cliff pottery, worth in excess of £100,000.

Las Vegas property

Many British investors have been stung by the downturn in the US property market. But it is a different story in one area of the US – Las Vegas. Paul Bowler, a Manchester-born Cirque du Soleil performer is capitalising on this explosion.

Scandinavian glass

Glass historian and dealer Andy McConnell, 54, has been blown away by the rising values of Scandinavian glass, roughly covering the years 1940 to 1975.

It’s worth sticking your neck out

The growing market for vintage neckties is rooted in the intriguing social history of the post-war era. It’s a subject which Jasja Boelhouwer, a keen tie collector, knows a lot about.

Needlework samplers

Financial astrology

Fashion history

Wealth hidden in snapshots of history

Ladybird books

Get into the swing of things

Antique scales

Modern British Art

Litigation funding

Military buttons