Coveted Churchill Artifacts Go on Sale in New York 

Winston Churchill’s personal desk and a portrait of the late British leader by Arthur Pan, part of Winston S. Churchill Collection of Steve Forbes, are displayed at the Winter Show in New York City on January 18, 2024. (AFP)
Winston Churchill’s personal desk and a portrait of the late British leader by Arthur Pan, part of Winston S. Churchill Collection of Steve Forbes, are displayed at the Winter Show in New York City on January 18, 2024. (AFP)
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Coveted Churchill Artifacts Go on Sale in New York 

Winston Churchill’s personal desk and a portrait of the late British leader by Arthur Pan, part of Winston S. Churchill Collection of Steve Forbes, are displayed at the Winter Show in New York City on January 18, 2024. (AFP)
Winston Churchill’s personal desk and a portrait of the late British leader by Arthur Pan, part of Winston S. Churchill Collection of Steve Forbes, are displayed at the Winter Show in New York City on January 18, 2024. (AFP)

A treasure trove of Winston Churchill's possessions including his desk, a holiday painting from a trip to Morocco, and a copy of his first book go on sale in New York on Thursday.

An imposing portrait of the British wartime leader by Hungarian artist Arthur Pan, sold at the height of the Second World War in 1943 to fundraise for Clementine Churchill's Aid to Russia Fund, is listed for $125,000.

The pieces are on sale at the Winter Show art, antiques and design fair in New York until January 28. They were acquired from the heir to the Forbes media fortune Steve Forbes.

"We've bought the highlights, we have papers, letters and we also have the desk and the painting -- crown jewel stuff," rare books dealer Pom Harrington told AFP.

Harrington said the cigar-smoking former prime minister had an enduring appeal in the United States.

"He's a war hero -- he was the underdog," he said. "We'll have plenty of customers in America."

Churchill was born to a mother from the United States and a British father and went on to receive honorary US citizenship.

His 1935 oil study of "The Entrance to the Gorge at Todhra" near Marrakesh in Morocco has an asking price of $395,000.

"If it weren't for painting, I could not live; I could not bear the strain of things," Churchill famously once said.

The desk, available for $450,000, was from his London home at Hyde Park Gate and was used while writing his "Second World War" memoirs, hand-corrected revised proofs of which are on sale for $750,000.

An inscribed copy of a first edition of "The Story of the Malakand Field Force," Churchill's first published non-fiction work, described by Harrington as "exceedingly rare" is on sale for $47,500.

And a copy of "Savrola," inscribed by Churchill to his military mentor Ian Hamilton after the two men were involved in the relief of Ladysmith following a 118-day siege, is on sale for $47,500.

The area around Ladysmith in South Africa was the scene of one of the bloodiest battles of the Boer War more than a century ago.

The battle involved three future world leaders Churchill, stretcher-bearer Mahatma Gandhi who later led India to independence and Louis Botha, South Africa's first prime minister.

Bound editions of Churchill's "On Free Trade" speeches, in defense of the free market, will likely attract the interest of collectors because of how rarely examples are available to purchase, Harrington said.

"If I'm a collector of rare books, these are the things to buy," said Harrington of the volumes, listed for $150,000.



Japan Startup Hopeful Ahead of Second Moon Launch

Japan's Ryoyu Kobayashi soars through the air during the trial round of the Four Hills FIS Ski Jumping tournament (Vierschanzentournee), in Innsbruck, Austria on January 4, 2025. (Photo by GEORG HOCHMUTH / APA / AFP)
Japan's Ryoyu Kobayashi soars through the air during the trial round of the Four Hills FIS Ski Jumping tournament (Vierschanzentournee), in Innsbruck, Austria on January 4, 2025. (Photo by GEORG HOCHMUTH / APA / AFP)
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Japan Startup Hopeful Ahead of Second Moon Launch

Japan's Ryoyu Kobayashi soars through the air during the trial round of the Four Hills FIS Ski Jumping tournament (Vierschanzentournee), in Innsbruck, Austria on January 4, 2025. (Photo by GEORG HOCHMUTH / APA / AFP)
Japan's Ryoyu Kobayashi soars through the air during the trial round of the Four Hills FIS Ski Jumping tournament (Vierschanzentournee), in Innsbruck, Austria on January 4, 2025. (Photo by GEORG HOCHMUTH / APA / AFP)

Japanese startup ispace vowed its upcoming second unmanned Moon mission will be a success, saying Thursday that it learned from its failed attempt nearly two years ago.

In April 2023, the firm's first spacecraft made an unsalvageable "hard landing", dashing its ambitions to be the first private company to touch down on the Moon.

The Houston-based Intuitive Machines accomplished that feat last year with an uncrewed craft that landed at the wrong angle but was able to complete tests and send photos.

With another mission scheduled to launch next week, ispace wants to win its place in space history at a booming time for missions to the Moon from both governments and private companies.

"We at ispace were disappointed in the failure of Mission 1," ispace founder and CEO Takeshi Hakamada told reporters.

"But that's why we hope to send a message to people across Japan that it's important to challenge ourselves again, after enduring the failure and learning from it."

"We will make this Mission 2 a success," AFP quoted him as saying.

Its new lander, called Resilience, will blast off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on January 15, along with another lunar lander built by US company Firefly Aerospace.

If Resilience lands successfully, it will deploy a micro rover and five other payloads from corporate partners.

These include an experiment by Takasago Thermal Engineering, which wants to split water into oxygen and hydrogen gas with a view to using hydrogen as satellite and spacecraft fuel.

- Rideshare -

Firefly's Blue Ghost lander will arrive at the Moon after travelling 45 days, followed by ispace's Resilience, which the Japanese company hopes will land on the Earth's satellite at the end of May, or in June.

For the program, officially named Hakuto-R Mission 2, ispace chose to cut down on costs by arranging the first private-sector rocket rideshare, Hakamada said.

Only five nations have soft-landed spacecraft on the Moon: the Soviet Union, the United States, China, India and, most recently, Japan.

Many companies are vying to offer cheaper and more frequent space exploration opportunities than governments.

Space One, another Japanese startup, is trying to become Japan's first company to put a satellite into orbit -- with some difficulty so far.

Last month, Space One's solid-fuel Kairos rocket blasted off from a private launchpad in western Japan but was later seen spiraling downwards in the distance.

That was the second launch attempt by Space One after an initial try in March last year ended in a mid-air explosion.

Meanwhile Toyota, the world's top-selling carmaker, announced this week it would invest seven billion yen ($44 million) in Japanese rocket startup Interstellar Technologies.

"The global demand for small satellite launches has surged nearly 20-fold, from 141 launches in 2016 to 2,860 in 2023," driven by private space businesses, national security concerns and technological development, Interstellar said.