Billhead & invoice ephemera auctions: trade and commercial paper, searched at once

Billheads and invoices are the receipts of everyday 18th and 19th-century commerce, often beautifully engraved with a merchant's premises, trade illustrations and typography that now make them collected in their own right, quite apart from any genealogical or local history interest. A billhead from a notable trade, an illustrated example, or one from a specific town can carry a real premium over a plain, undecorated one.

Why billhead lots get missed

General ephemera and paper sellers commonly describe these simply as "old receipt" or "antique paperwork" without naming the trade or illustration, so a genuinely decorative or historically interesting billhead can be sitting inside a listing that never surfaces without a search across every platform.

One search across every platform

Auction Bid Assistant's free browser extension searches the-saleroom, EasyLive, Bidspotter, Invaluable, NumisBids, iCollector and LiveAuctionWorld simultaneously, alongside eBay. Search a trade name, a town, "illustrated billhead," or "billhead" generally and results return across all of them, with images, estimates, current bids where shown, and sale countdowns, sorted by platform in tabs.

Real results for "antique billhead": genuine 19th and early 20th century illustrated trade billheads and receipts, found in one search.

It works by searching from inside your own browser, the same as opening and searching each site yourself, just done in seconds. Nothing is stored on our servers, permissions are minimal, and the extension never places a bid on your behalf.

Alerts: for the trades or towns you collect

Save a search (a trade name, a town, or "billhead" generally) and get emailed the moment a new lot matches it, across all covered platforms including eBay and NumisBids, rather than relying on remembering to check each one.

Want to try before installing?

The same search box works on this website with no install at all for eBay, iCollector, LiveAuctionWorld and Featured Auction catalogues, a quick way to see matching billhead lots before adding the rest of the platforms via the extension.

Built for how billhead collectors actually work

Save any lot with one click from search results, export your shortlist as a printable PDF or CSV before a sale, and on the day itself the optional live bridge feeds the auctioneer's asking price into the free bid calculator, so your maximum (with buyer's premium and any applicable taxes included) is always in front of you.

Common questions