Drawing of Tahiti by William Hodges

There aren't many places where you might spot a chap in a cravat and Gore-Tex jacket (looking spiffing at that), but Christie's in St. James's, London, is one of them. This week, items are on view for the annual Exploration and Travel auction (September 26-27), including artifacts from the peripatetic T. E. Lawrence, Henry Morton Stanley, and Robert Falcon Scott.
Chamounix by Godfrey Nicolas Frankenstein (1820-1875)

The sale, this year themed "The Alps to Everest," celebrates the 150th anniversary of the Alpine Club. An exquisite pen and ink vignette of Tahiti (top image) by William Hodges, the artist on Captain James Cook's second Pacific voyage, is expected to fetch £100-150,000. Also featured are art and artifacts of mountaineering, including John Ruskin's evocative watercolor of the Matterhorn (estimate £15,000-20,000), rare slides of the 1922 expedition to Mount Everest (£2-3,000), and four 1951 photographs reputedly capturing Yeti footprints (£1,800-2,500).
Peaks Near Nanga Parbat by Theodore Howard Somervell (1890-1975)
—Kelly Tyler-Lewis

In their September 26 New York sale,  Antiquorum, the watch auctioneer, operates on the premise that if one desirable watch is good, 23 desirable watches are even better. In this case, they're offering a set of Omega Speedmaster watches, each bearing the mission emblem of a manned NASA space voyage. You can select between, say, the "Kitty Hawk and Antares" and the Gemini V. They sit in a large fitted case, and while the centerpiece is a replica of the first watch worn on the face of the moon, if you can part with an estimated $100,000, you'll have the privilege of enjoying these timepieces here on earth.

—David Coggins

Today at 6 P.M. at the Monaco Yacht Show the watch auctioneer Antiquorum will sell 35 limited edition watches from leading makers and give the money to charity. It's a pretty good deal all around, and one blessed with the patronage of Prince Albert II. Antiquorum claims responsibility for selling an impressive 45 of the 66 watches that have ever broken the 1,000,000 Swiss Franc barrier. That should prepare you to have your auction paddle—and your wallet—ready.

Highlights include:
Breguet, Winston Churchill's venerable French watchmaker. They offer a yellow gold Chronograph Classique a Rattrapante, one of seven produced. Schaffhausen's IWC's stainless steel chronograph Fliegeruhr 5026, Perpetual Calendar keeps time, date, and phases of the moon. Feel confident knowing it's the only one ever made. Patek Phillipe's Nautilus Titanium is water-resistant to 60 meters, and made of industrial-strength titanium, suitable for a leader of industry. If you accept the fact that you don't need a chronograph in your everyday life, or when you're wearing a tuxedo, consider the elegant, relatively unadorned Omega, De Ville Hour Vision, Only Watch. Louis Vuitton thinks enough of their Tambour18 Mandarine that when it's not on a lady's wrist it can rest in its own 'mini-trunk.'

—David Coggins

Paying six figures for a golf club that won't shave any strokes off your handicap may seem on par with using a pitching wedge to putt. But golf memorabilia has begun to command such sums. On September 27 and 28, the Jeffery B. Ellis collection–perhaps the world's largest assemblage of historical wooden golf clubs–will go up on the block at Sotheby's in New York, an auction that is certain to lift prices even higher.

"There's never been a golf club collection this comprehensive that's come out for public sale," says Lee Dunbar, director of the Collectibles Department and a senior vice president of the auction house. Over 600 lots span the 1600s to 1930s, including a 250-year-old putter by Andrew Dickson, thought to be the first maker to mark his work. (Estimate: $200,000 to $300,000.)

Ellis began amassing clubs in the seventies at a Milwaukee Goodwill and soon learned to target the oddest specimens. "The strange ones that didn't perform well, the market didn't take to them, and they were left behind," Ellis says. Note the 1860s-era Left-Handed Long-Nosed Spoon ($7,500 to $15,000), which sounds more appropriate for a nightclub than a fairway.

A very Early and Important Square Toe Light Iron. Circa 1600. Est. $150,000 to $250,000

Currie Metalwood. Patented by William Currie Jr. 1891. Est. $25,000 to $40,000
The John Radel Duplex Iron. Patented 1928. Est. $2,000 to $3,000
Presentation putter. Made by McEwan, Circa 1825. Est. $25,000 to $44,000
The Roy Water Iron, Circa 1880's. Est. $15,000 to $25,000