Auctioneers

The Heuer Monaco, the world’s first automatic chronograph with a square case, was launched at the Basel fair in 1969 with the retail price set at $200.

As the implementation of the Ivory Act 2018 draws closer, it is approaching closing time at the last-chance saloon for UK owners who wish to monetise Art Deco chryselephantine sculpture.

Sotheby’s Paris (25/20/13.9% buyer’s premium) reported a cumulative total of €5.4m for the five online sales it held over two weeks in mid May through to early June. The initiative attracted new buyers, said the auction house, with 35% in the jewellery sale and 27% in the Contemporary art auction.

Originally scheduled for the end of March, an ‘African Americana’ sale planned by Swann Galleries (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) was postponed until May 7, when it was successfully sold online with almost 90% of the 400 lots finding buyers.

This ‘pre-Moon’ Omega Speedmaster purchased new in Berlin in 1960, came for sale at Aston’s (24% buyer’s premium) in Dudley on June 11.

A rare ‘pocket watch’ sold by East Bristol Auctions (18% buyer’s premium) was more surveillance device than timekeeper.

A newly discovered bronze by a French Renaissance sculptor was acquired by the Louvre museum for €1.15m (£1.05m) at an auction in Paris on June 9.

This 1890s Japoniste-style photograph frame in brown patinated bronze applied with gilt branches of stylised myosotis is by the Paris firm of Maison Millet.

This painting of Madame de Saint-Maurice is one of five works by Edouard Vuillard spanning the years 1900-18 from the Georges and Jacqueline Herbin collection on offer at Artcurial in Paris.

A large collection of Bretby Art Pottery formed part of the final day of selling at a recent auction at Hansons’ Bishton Hall saleroom in Staffordshire.

An album of 12 early watercolour drawings of Australian Aborigines made a surprising £72,000 (plus 25% buyer’s premium) at Forum Auctions in London.

Lemania is a name that should be as well-known as that of Omega or Tissot. The firm – dubbed by one watch blogger as ‘the greatest maker of watches that you may never have heard of’ – provided every single chronograph movement that those much better-known brands used until the 1970s.

Auction rooms in France are gradually opening up again, albeit within the limitations of the new health and safety regulations set as a result of the coronavirus and aided by the extra input from absentee bidding on phones and online.

The lockdown may have reduced the number of UK auctions taking place but buyers have been looking more eagerly for opportunities at those events that have been staged.

Christie’s (25/20/13.5% buyer’s premium) has held its first live sales in Paris since lockdown.

A group of eight works by Maggi Hambling (b.1945) appeared at a recent online sale held by Welsh saleroom Rogers Jones (22% buyer’s premium).

Dual time zones watches first came into fashion in France, where they were used to show both ‘time’ in the traditional manner and also Revolutionary time, a short-lived idea based on the decimal system.

As collectors are squeezed out of the market for watches by Rolex and Omega, prices for vintage chronographs by ‘lesser’ makers are steadily rising in value.

The market for vintage mechanical wristwatches, which began in earnest in Europe in the 1990s, is not yet fully 30 years old but is maturing rapidly.

The Longines WWW is deemed the second rarest of the ‘Dirty Dozen’. These watches, made by 12 different Swiss brands, were ordered by the British Ministry of Defence during the tail-end of the Second World War for issue to army ground personnel.