Biddle & Webb

BIRMINGHAM auction house Biddle & Webb are to open a Wolverhampton office later this month.

ALTHOUGH catalogued as a late 18th century fruitwood apple form tea caddy, this finely turned and carved 5 1/2in (13cm) high vessel sold by Biddle & Webb (15% buyer’s premium) on April 1 was more accurately a melon.

THE large sums of money rock ‘n’ roll memorabilia collectors are prepared to part with for a complete set of Beatles autographs inevitably means the market is peppered with fakes. The watertight provenance of an early Beatles extended play record, Twist and Shout, Parlophone, 1963, signed to the sleeve by the Fab Four, was key to its success at Biddle & Webb’s (15% buyer’s premium) 511-lot sale of toys and juvenilia in Birmingham on May 21.

BIRMINGHAM auctioneers Biddle & Webb (15% buyer’s premium) have been holding regular decorative arts sales for some years now. Generally 20th century ceramics top the sales list and this was again the case at the April 16 sale when two 13in (33cm) examples of Drunken Bricklayer vases designed by Geoffrey Baxter for the Whitefriars pottery were major stars.

WITH a name like the Old Picture Palace, the former cinema in Matlock that is the newly acquired saleroom of the Derby auctioneers Bamfords (15% buyer’s premium) should be the sort of venue where the more traditional end of the art market should feel at home.

THERE was plenty to tempt toy collectors in the provinces in late January and early February with over 1000 wide-ranging lots catering to all tastes and offered in three different sales.

Given that they were sold in such massive quantities, Beatles singles remain relatively common and few command more than £10-20 each – unless of course they have a more personal connection with the Fab Four.

Jewellery is a classic Christmas seller and, combined with the current demand for Art Nouveau this hallmarked silver Charles Horner pendant, right, was always a likely seller.

George Jones majolica continues to be extraordinarily popular with buyers, both trade and private. Some damage to a George Jones cheese dish and cover offered in Birmingham at Biddle & Webb saw it estimated at £300-500 so it came as rather a surprise when it soared above this.

Sometimes the most famous names can be found in the unlikeliest places. Biddle & Webb auctioneer Nicholas Davies had been called out to view a Georgian drop leaf table in a local property but noticed this early trefid spoon, pictured, in a small box of cutlery.

UK: MEDALS took the top three slots in this toys, juvenilia and ephemera sale but there was a healthy take-up for toys from collectors and from a couple of Liverpool-based specialist dealers at this 537-lot auction that netted Biddle & Webb around £25,000.

UK: A ROUTINE dispersal at the Ladybank salerooms was led by a Georgian oak lowboy of typical composition which attracted £13504.