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ON Sunday, 18th May 2003, antiques enthusiasts can have their objects of virtue, jewellery and paintings appraised at Chilworth Manor, Chilworth, from 11:00am to 4:00pm.

Illustrated right is one of 15 chromolitho plates after pastel originals by Étienne Léopold Trouvelot that make up a scarce, complete set of The Trouvelot Astronomical Drawings, the work of a keen observer and talented artist who spent the years 1872-74 using the 15in refractor at Harvard Observatory.

AN UNUSED photographic postcard showing the ‘The New White Star Liner Titanic... nearing completion: locked in the largest graving dock in the world, Belfast, February 1912’, was one of the more popular lots in a sale of books, cigarette, trade and postcards, plus autograph material, held by Acorn Auctions of Salford on April 15. It sold at £210.

HALLS of Shrewsbury will be taking a very active part in next month’s Asian Art Week, having turned up a 157-piece collection of netsuke in the Midlands.

A pair of candlesticks featured strongly at ELR Auctions' 28 March sale (12.5% buyer's premium), were a classic by Ebeneezer Coker, who along with Cafe, is probably the best known of all candlestick makers.

Not such a pretty face, perhaps, but the artist was certainly worth a thousand dollars or more.

Black Forest Bear furniture is hugely popular and this late 19th/early 20th century stick stand in the form of a standing bear with outstretched arms, right, was one of the main attention grabbers at Clevedon Salerooms (15% buyer’s premium) on March 6.

LOOKING back on spring to see what green shoots of recovery might be discernible, a rather unexpected contender for the category turns out to be silver. Obviously, silver starts any recovery from a pretty low and long-standing trough but some of the results round the country certainly indicated that there was more than just auctioneers’ wishful thinking behind the optimistic comments.

THE move towards better prices for silver took Cumbrian auctioneers Penrith Farmers' & Kidd's rather by surprise at their 1125-lot quarterly catalogue sale on March 26 (15% buyer's premium inc. VAT) – although it was a wine-related item which did the honours and these do have their own buoyant market.

MOST numismatic material when offered at auction comes up in London. Sometimes this is not the case and then frequently a better-than-usual price is achieved.

THANKS to intense internicine competition between major London dealers such as Richard Green and David Mason in recent years, the once-maligned name of Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-1839) has become a byword for high prices at UK art sales.

IT’S been a long time since any auctioneer chose to illustrate his catalogue front cover with an array of silver candlesticks but this was the rather heartening decision by The Bristol Auction Rooms for their April 8 sale (12.77% buyer's premium inc. VAT) and their enlightened, so to speak, move was rewarded when all the lots, from George IV to 1967, sold within or above the admittedly modest three-figure expectations.

ALTERNATIVE investment might be too strong a word for it, but the current desperate state of returns in the stock market and other investment areas does seem to be having a positive effect at art sales, at least in Scotland.

WHILST it is widely acknowledged that the antiques trade is currently suffering a significant downturn, the silver market has been in the doldrums for much longer.

THE war in Iraq does not appear to have had any obvious effect on the latest series of lslamic sales, held in London last week. There was still an international turnout for the three main auctions of Islamic works of art and, in a field usually characterised by selective buying, the selling rates were not especially different, with a take-up in lot terms ranging from just over half the content at Bonhams and Christie’s King Street to just over two thirds at Sotheby’s.

Potential impact on legal trade still not clear: Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell has set out a five-point plan for the future protection of cultural objects in the light of the looting in Iraq. Central to the plan is the adoption of MP Richard Allan’s Private Member’s Bill, which failed to proceed in parliament earlier this year.

Christian Deydier was re-elected President of France's Syndicat National des Antiquaires in Paris on April 30. The feistily flamboyant Deydier has vowed to “continue to adopt a dynamic and innovative approach” towards “developing the profession and defending its interests”, notably with regard to Unidroit and import VAT.

HAMPSHIRE dealers Millers Antiques offer a 20 per cent discount on all stock at their Open Weekend to be held at Netherbrook House, 86 Christchurch Road, Ringwood from May 9 to 12.

THE SARS virus has caused a slump in the price of jewellers’ platinum as the Far Eastern jewellery trade effectively goes into quarantine. While silver seems stable and the price of gold has actually risen slightly, platinum has plummeted 39p per gram over the past week, from £10.04 to £9.65.

BELFAST was the city that built the Titanic and the connection between the doomed liner and the Northern Irish capital has always been strong. The news of the tragedy was devastating to the thousands of men who had worked on the ship, their families, and to all the people of Belfast, perhaps none more so than James Lord Pirrie, uncle of Thomas Andrews, the designer of the Titanic and chairman of Harland & Wolff, the famous shipyard where it was built.