Dealers

DEALERS in the Dover area have contacted the Antiques Trade Gazette to complain about a local police initiative asking them to fingerprint their customers.

UK: FOUR weeks of expert evidence and deliberation has ended with the Parliamentary Select Committee needing the chairman’s casting vote to keep the Kent Bill from being thrown out.

UK: TOMMASO Zanzotto, chairman of Stocklight, which owns the Bernard J. Shapero Rare Books recently acquired Bloomsbury Book Auctions, has vowed to keep the two companies totally separate.

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.

UK: CHESTER antiques dealer Alan Shindler has been jailed for six months for handling and selling fake goods. And Trading Standards officers issued an alert to former trade customers in case they were duped.

LONDON: Bermondsey’s The Old Cinema antiques warehouse is to move out of the area after the building it occupies has been sold for redevelopment.

ITALIAN Renaissance sculpture made a rare splash in the national news last week with the announcement that a £3500 bronze bought in Los Angeles by leading London works of art dealer Daniel Katz was now identified as a “multimillion pound masterpiece by Donatello”.

UK: THE Internet has failed to generate any significant volume of sales for London’s art dealers in the past year, reports the members’ survey for 1999/2000 by the Society of London Art Dealers.

UK: AGNEW’S have strengthened their commitment to contemporary art with the appointment of Mark Adams as director in charge of the contemporary department.

UK: PRICE GUIDE publishers Miller’s have issued a shortlist of contenders for the British Antiques and Collectables Awards, a new scheme which is being run for the first time this year, in association with the BBC Homes & Antiques Magazine.

Art dealers Simon C. Dickinson have made a bold new incursion into the luxury market by adding a jewellery arm to their existing Old Master and Impressionist and Modern business, which made sales of £100m last year.

UK: Trade risks cutbacks in police commitment over due diligence.

UK: LEADING London art dealer Simon Dickinson has announced the sale to the Brooklyn Museum of Art of the 14th century Florentine gold ground painting of Christ in Majesty which he bought for £66,000 at Dorchester rooms of Hy. Duke & Son on March 9

US: NEW York financier Saul Steinberg is to sell his collection of 61 Old Master paintings through the New York art dealer Richard Feigen. With obvious carrots dangled by the leading auction houses for such an important collection, conservatively valued at some $52m, this is a major fillip for the fine art trade.

UK: INTERNET auction specialists Gavelnet have announced that they will now be offering dealers a low cost service. All technical problems will be taken care of by Gavelnet – only a phone is necessary.

UK: ANOTHER dealer has fallen foul of a credit card con only a month after the Antiques Trade Gazette warned the Trade about following correct security procedures during transactions.

UK: DESPITE suffering a devastating fire at his premises on March 25, Arundel dealer Spencer Swaffer is running his business as usual from his warehouse just three miles away.

UK: INVESTIGATIONS by a Surrey antiques dealer have uncovered a crime spree by what appears to be a single gang right across the South East of England.

UK: POLICE are investigating the possibility that the same gang is behind a number of thefts from antique shops in Greater London and Surrey over the last few months.

UK: BOND Street dealers Mallett have revealed a year on year 18 per cent fall in pre-tax profits for the first six months of 1999 to £2.68m.