Auctioneers

ACADEMY Auctioneers, London, have vowed to fulfil their commitments to existing clients, despite disputes over the sale of the company.

UK: Bonhams, the 200 year old family-owned British auction house and Brooks, the classic car and automobilia auctioneers, are to merge.

UK: English or Continental? That was the question specialist dealers and collectors were asking themselves of this mid-16th century brass candlestick which turned up at Sotheby’s oak sale at Billingshurst, Sussex on September 12 and 14

The combined hammer prices for pre-war B-movie advertising posters at auction houses these days can easily exceed the budgets allocated by the old Hollywood studios to such downmarket films.

USA: SKINNER’S auctioneers of Boston have set up a new contemporary art gallery which could do for American artists what Maurice Saatchi has done for Damien Hirst and others.

The William Foyle Library Pt. II sale at Christie’s, London last week revealed a copy of one of the rarest of all blockbooks.

While Thai and Chinese businessmen splashed out on bottles of Pomerol 61 and Romanee-Conti 85 in the years leading up to the crash of the Tiger economies in the late 1990s, Japanese captains of industry were impressing their corporate friends with equally expensive bottles of Scotch, which they would crack open after work and down in one sitting.

UK: The market for 20th century collectable ceramics can be a fickle beast – as quick to react to fashion as a high street shirt – so one should not necessarily be surprised to learn that, for once, Christie’s South Kensington (17.5 per cent buyer’s premium) found the temperature variable when they dipped their toes into these waters on August 25, 2000.

UK: CONFUSION has arisen over the future of Academy Auctions of Ealing after conflicting reports that it may or may not be closing.

Included among a fine selection of Scottish silver and vertu at the sale conducted by Sotheby’s at the Gleneagles Hotel, Perthshire, Scotland on August 29 was this remarkable royal presentation set of buttons painted with shooting, fishing and hunting scenes.

Country pursuits like shooting grouse and watching royals traditionally attract wealthy tourists to Scotland at the end of August, and auctioneers have long since taken advantage of this influx.

SOTHEBY’S have announced that they are to move the Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary Art sales they usually hold in December to February.

USA: The highlight of a $1.36m sale of Americana held by Massachusetts auctioneers Skinner in their Bolton rooms on August 12 was this 2ft 4in (71cm) high, 21in (53cm) diameter, Philadelphia cherry-wood bird cage tea table dated c.1760-80, which left its $10,000-15,000 estimate behind as two dealers in the room contested it to no less than $370,000 (£253,425) plus premium.

SALES figures for the first half of 2000 were up by more than a fifth at Christie’s.

A DISPUTE between a leading Web auctioneer and a dealer has highlighted a significant difference between Internet and live sales that could have widespread implications for the trade.

AUSTRALIA: BACK in the 1980s a local election campaign in a certain southern hemisphere country featured posters with the simple combination of a photo of the opposition candidate above the words GET THIS BASTARD.

UK: BLOOMSBURY Book Auctions, London has been sold to Stocklight Limited, owners of Bernard J. Shapero Rare Books and the Shapero Gallery.

UK: A SMALL group of scientific apparatus featured in Phillips’ July 18 horological auction in Bond Street, London and comprised a silver pocket chronometer by Webster and Son of London, hallmarked for 1834, and a 19th century five-inch theodolite signed for Reiss Leibenwerda, each with their custom-made cases.

SOTHEBY’S profits fell 5.2 per cent for the second quarter of 2000, against the same period last year, despite revenue rising. The company largely blames Internet expenses and the $3.8m costs of the anti-trust investigation for this drop.

UK: THE current fashion for English porcelain may lean towards the earliest pieces of blue and white, but it was not the case 30 years ago when the vendor of this First Period Worcester yellow ground mask jug, c.1760 purchased this piece for £3800 at the Grosvenor House Antiques Fair.