SMALL and seemingly inconsequential items can sometimes hold a surprising value.

The London sale by Simmons Gallery saw a remarkable £220 paid for a small brass coin-like object from a Lake District pub.

The 3d token is for the Golden Rule Hotel at Ambleside and may have been a Victorian promotion giving money off drink or possibly an admission ticket for a pub concert.

The site on Smithy Brow was the bew house of Ambleside Hall in 1508 and has been a pub since around 1723.

A 6lb lump of Cumbrian iron ore featuring specular hematite should make £80 to £100 in a sale by TimeLine Auctions at Harwich, Essex, on July 9.

The sample, from Furness or West Cumberland, was originally part of the Victorian Museum collection put together by London jeweller James Reynolds Gregory, who lived from 1832 to 1898.

The sale by Christie’s South Kensington, on July 7, expects £2,500 to £3,500 for a painting of Coniston.

It is the work of Alfred William Hunt, who lived from 1830 to 1896.

The work in pencil and watercolours is called Yewdale Crags, Coniston, Lake District and is signed and dated 1878.

The Lockdales sale in Ipswich on July 9 to 10 expects £35 to £40 for a postcard of Barrow AFC in 1921 to 1922.

This is the first season of professional football in Division 3 North of the Football League. The sale by Forum Auctions, of Queenstown Road, London on July 13 to 14 has a letter written by Lakeland poet Robert Southey.

It should sell for £400 to £600.

The letter was sent to Isaac Braithwaite, of Kendal, in January, 1807, thanking him for the loan of books.

Southey was a fried of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

He was born in Bristol in 1774 but by the end of the century was living with his family at Greta Hall, Keswick.

He wrote poetry, biographies and travel journals and was the poet Laureate from 1813 until his death in 1843.

He was also involved in early experiments with nitrous oxide or “laughing gas” with scientist Humphry Davy. The poet is buried at Crosthwaite Church in the Lake District.