2013

Three men who were responsible for a sophisticated credit card fraud which targeted auction houses across the country have now been sentenced.

The latest series of Russian art auctions in London set a combined hammer total of £42.7m to make it the most lucrative since the market peaked in June 2008.

Warwickshire saleroom Bigwood of Teddington, Stratford-on-Avon sold this mid 19th century whalebone cane for an extraordinary £27,000 at their latest sale.

‘Frieze Masters’ has acquired further gravitas following its successful launch last year by signing up several new heavyweight exhibitors for the 2013 event from October 17-20 in London’s Regent’s Park.

These tiny Chinese agate carvings jointly estimated at just £200-300 stole the show at Woolley & Wallis’ Asian series when they sold for 500 times the top guide in a packed saleroom in Salisbury.

The 2012 Olympics were the third to be held in London since the modern games were revived in the late 19th century, but in the Cotswolds market town of Chipping Camden they have an annual ‘Olimpicks’ tradition that dates back to the early 17th century.

Two of Manhattan’s largest and best-known antiques shows are now under new management following the acquisition of the ‘Pier Antiques Show’ and the ‘Antiques at the Armory Show’ by GLM from Stella Show Management.

A Lonsdale Belt awarded to Welsh heavyweight boxing champion Jack Petersen has been stolen from his son’s home.

This tour de force of the Victorian glass craftsman’s art was the highlight of Bonhams’ mixed-owner British and European glass sale.

The latest sealed-bid sale at Summers Place Auctions in Billingshurst produced some real surprises – none more so than the Edwardian painted wood and wrought-iron seesaw pictured here.

A pencil drawing by LS Lowry (1887-1976) set an auction record for a work on paper by the artist this week, selling for £175,000.

Since ‘The Grosvenor House Art & Antiques Fair’ was forced to close after 75 years in 2009, the ‘Olympia International Art & Antiques Fair’ has taken up the mantle of the grande dame of London’s summer fairs.

The latest cameras and photographic equipment auction at Special Auction Services of Greenham, near Newbury included two daguerreotypes by direct descent through the family of Antoine François Jean Claudet (1798-1867), the property of his great-great-great-granddaughter.

The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles has purchased the self-portrait by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606-69) which is now known as Rembrandt Laughing.

Are the costs of running a gallery still necessary in the face of technology and a changing market? That will be the subject up for debate on Monday, June 10, at the Summer Olympia fair.

London jewellers Wartski have donated the £57,395 necessary to purchase the 81 additional pieces of Anglo-Saxon treasure found last November in the same field as the 3,500-piece Staffordshire Hoard.

Anxious to arrest declining saleroom audiences, Bertoia Auctions in Vineland, New Jersey, chose to axe the buyer’s premium for bidders in the room for their sale on March 16.

Stuttgart auctioneers Nagel achieved a new German auction record for Oriental art when they sold a Yongzheng mark and period wine pot and cover for €2.8m (£2.37m).

It has to go down as one of the great car boot fair finds of all time. On June 26, Christie’s South Kensington will offer for sale this Breitling Top Time wristwatch, worn by Sean Connery in ‘Thunderball’.

Paul Aitken, CEO of asset loan specialist borro, has revealed that art and antiques now account for 42% of the company’s loan book by value, with the more traditional asset loan categories of jewellery, watches and gold accounting for 48% and luxury and classic cars 10%.