I'LL never forgive them for selling the stuffed armadillo without telling me.

That shelled South American quadruped was mine.

It happened a year ago. One week he was there on one of the shelves at Dominic Winter Book Auctions in Maxwell Street, and the next he was gone.

Still, the place can't be all bad, since it is responsible for gradually turning Swindon into an international centre for the buying and selling of printed, written, drawn and painted treasures.

In-house documents expert Richard Westwood Brookes proudly reeled off a brief list:

Juvenile drawings by Beatrix Potter, including what may have been a prototype for Peter Rabbit £40,000.

A rare archive album from a pioneering Edinburgh photographic club £21,800.

A first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone £10,000.

A series of rare Spanish watercolours £60,000.

An original copy of a speech by Adolf Hitler £3,000.

Richard said: "We are known all over the world, with bids made over the telephone and by e-mail as well as in person."

Dominic Winter is in his late 40s and founded the auction house a dozen years ago.

Usually only too willing to talk, he was too busy cataloguing the latest lots to meet me.

Dominic once worked for a now-defunct Bristol Auction House, and decided to strike out on his own in response to demands for a specialist house serving the book trade.

An agreement with his former employers obliged Dominic not to trade within some 20 miles of Bristol for a set period after his departure.

Swindon was initially chosen because it was the next town on the M4, but it turned out to be such a fortunate choice that the firm has been here ever since.

Richard explained: "The importance of the location has become really apparent. If you are a dealer buying 500 books from a London auction house, you have the problem of getting your van into London, finding somewhere to park and then getting it out again. We are readily accessible, but we are still only an hour or so from London."

A visit to the Maxwell Street storage room is guaranteed to lead to cliched comparisons to Aladdin's cave.

The books and documents on show might range from transcripts of the Nuremberg war crimes trials to Georgian treatises on obscure lizards.

Collections of watercolours, illustrations, maps and prints also abound, and memorabilia sales have featured items relating to everyone from monarchs to television celebrities.

Customers range from ordinary collectors on limited budgets to millionaires seeking elusive volumes to add to huge libraries. Museums and galleries are also frequent bidders.

Richard, 52, a former journalist, has been working for the firm for about four years. What would be his ultimate fantasy lot?

"It isn't a fantasy, it's real. Next month, at an estimated price of up to £250,000, we'll be selling an autographed manuscript of a speech by King Louis XVI that started the French Revolution."