2012

BUSINESS is really booming when it comes to the world of live online auctions.

THE larger auction houses which have their own in-house live bidding are also seeing online bids becoming increasingly significant to their business.

FOR provincial auctioneers, online bidding has clearly been a massive boon… and even a lifeline.

THE new ‘emergency guidance’ banning the export of worked rhinoceros horn appeared to have a limited effect at the first sale since it was introduced without notice on March 12.

A RUGBY-tackling mystery hero and a life-size pottery Great Dane helped scupper a daylight smash-and-grab raid targeting a rhino horn libation cup.

THE Great Bed of Ware is to be loaned by the V&A, for the first time since its acquisition in 1931, to the Ware Museum.

RESTRICTIONS surrounding the export of rhino horn from countries within the European Union have been further tightened to include all items, whether or not they have been ‘worked’.

THE incomparable TEFAF Maastricht opened to the usual streams of visitors at the Maastricht Exhibition and Congress Centre but, unusually for the Dutch fair, an early big ticket sale came for a British picture.

“THERE shall be one measure of wine throughout our whole realm, and one measure of ale and one measure of corn – namely, the London quart.”

THE Fine Art Auction Group Ltd, trading as Dreweatts and Bloomsbury Auctions, have appointed Will Richards as deputy chairman of Dreweatts.

THE High Court has ruled that Sotheby’s were not negligent in cataloguing and valuing a judge’s gold chain of office as late 17th century rather than a spectacularly rare survivor from Tudor times.

THE first sale at new premises for Ipswich auctioneers Lockdales, now at the former officers’ barracks in Martlesham Heath, included two pieces of silver and enamel ware of the type associated with the Solvychegodsk region.

IT appears that precious metals will not be included in the new Scrap Metal Dealers (Amendment) Act if it reaches the statute book, as expected, later this year.

GRAY’S dealers hoping for some let-up in the disruption to the surrounding area have learnt that Crossrail have applied for the continued closure of the street that runs parallel to the central London antiques centre.

TV presenters and antiques champions Kirstie Allsopp and Mark Hill announced the winners of the inaugural Britain’s Best Antiques Shops Awards at the Bath Decorative & Antiques Fair on March 8.

THE vital part trade has played in the history of collecting is the theme of a two-day conference at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford on June 15 and 16.

SOTHEBY’S have released more details of their 2011 results, showing a 7% rise in revenue to $831.8m against global sales figures of $4.9bn. Profits were $171.4m.

David Hockney (b.1937) and the late Lucian Freud (1922-2011) have captured the public imagination at the moment.

BONHAMS have renewed their call for better client protection in the wake of Auction Atrium’s demise, with the online auction house still owing six-figure sums to consignors.

FOUR centuries of social, commercial and military history dictate that South Africa is just occasionally the source of rare European antiques and works of art.