Jewellery

RECOMMENDED by Fiona Knapp, who has recently designed a range of jewellery for the Biba label, as one of the best places to buy gemstones in London, the quarterly Rock and Gem Show is held at Kempton Park Racecourse with the next scheduled for October 21 and 22.

BEAD-collecting tends to fall between jewellery and tribal art and is often overlooked as a collecting area in its own right.

THIEVES have raided a fair in Belgium and stolen antique jewellery from one of Europe's leading dealers in period jewellery.

Tiffany the jewellers are suing eBay in a case that challenges the very formula that has made the online giant such a success.

The cosy Dorset town of Sherborne is not usually associated with bloody revolution and armed struggle, but Sherborne-based Charterhouse Auctioneers have unearthed two items redolent with memories of the American Revolution.

It’s well known that diamonds are a girl’s best friend but handbags surely come a close second. The two combined can be a killer combination.

Twentieth century pieces proved to be the prize jewels at the 450-lot March 16 sale of silver and jewellery held by Leominster auctioneers Brightwells (15% buyer’s premium).

This year’s jewellery sales in the upscale Swiss winter resort of St Moritz – an annual fixture since 1995 – again fomented plenty of interest among the well-heeled private clientele in town at the height of the skiing season.

BIDDERS at this week’s sale of the Rowler Collection of Georg Jensen silver at Christie’s Rockefeller Center, New York, might be interested to learn that, according to Michael James, founder and director of Jensen specialists The Silver Fund, virtually the entire collection of some 800 pieces was acquired for Rowler by The Silver Fund over the past six years.

Clarke Gammon Wellers, Guildford, October 26. Buyer’s premium: 15 per cent Although there were few four-figure highlights in this 711-lot outing, the 100-lot jewellery section had just the type of reasonably estimated, privately entered, material to attract dealers from London and the South East who, between them, secured the lion’s share of entries.

Is there a Christmas factor in the auction rooms? Cheffins auctioneer Jonathan Law (Buyer’s premium: 15 per cent) believes that the season may have some effect in putting a little pressure on people to buy rather than wait.

TWO diamonds with a reported value of nearly £8m were were stolen from the Chopard stand at the Paris Biennale.

GEORGE Jensen silver specialists The Silver Fund, who have shops in St. James’s, London and Madison Avenue, New York, have opened an outlet at Gump’s, San Francisco’s leading department store.

THE three-session, 630-lot jewellery section of Tajan's (20.33% buyer's premium) August 3-4 sale, with a chirpy attendance of 80-100 throughout, met a more convincing response than the Modern art, bringing €2.7m (£1.8m) hammer, including an aftersale €145,000 (£96,670) for a grey-gold ring with a fancy yellow, rectangular 29.57-carat diamond (estimate €200,000-250,000).

SIX masked raiders broke into the South Cotswolds Antiques Fair at Westonbirt School, near Tetbury in Gloucestershire around 3am on the morning of Sunday August 15 and escaped with an estimated £400,000 worth of jewellery.

A GANG made off with £400,000 worth of Asian jewellery after fooling a shop owner into believing they were police officers. Pretending to carry out a drugs raid, the men appeared to be genuine policemen with uniforms, radios, evidence bags, bullet-proof vests, and what appeared to be authentic ID and search warrants.

I HAVE been asked to alert readers to the annual Beadwork and Bead Fair – and why not? There are many more arcane items which have societies devoted to them and beads obviously have staying power for the fair has been going for 15 years.

AUCTIONEERS David Lay (15% buyer's premium) of Penzance can rely on strong local demand for home-grown collectables such as Newlyn copper and Troika pottery at the bi-monthly sales.

DESPITE the well-documented vagaries of the silver and electroplate market, if vendors can forget the price history of the previous two decades it is still possible to hold a successful sale of country house tablewares.

THE jewellery dealer targeted by a gang at Sandown Park Fair on April 27 has told the Antiques Trade Gazette it was the second attack on him in as little as two weeks.