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Clocks, Watches and Wristwatches: There was a solid performance for the 288 lots of Clocks, Watches and Wristwatches offered by Sotheby’s Olympia (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) on September 19 marred only by the failure of the potential best seller, the 18th century English musical and automaton clock attributed to James Cox, London.c.1775.

For those who can’t afford paintings by L.S. Lowry, the Manchester townscapes of Arthur Delaney (1927-87 appear to be becoming an increasingly popular substitute.

Some of the best expressions of the Sixties’ love affair with bold psychedelic patterns and colours can be seen in the fabric designs from that era.

With the antiquities market suffering from high prices and criminal scandals and a shortage of good material, it is no real surprise that collectors have turned to natural, as opposed to man-made, artefacts of greater age and, arguably, equal beauty.

NICOLA Beach, who helped set up Drummond Read Recruitment and Training, has formed her own fine arts recruitment company to specialise in a narrower sector of the market.

A 221-lot auction of Contemporary Ceramics, made up the final instalment of Bonhams’ design week series on September 24. The two most bankable names in this market are Hans Coper and Lucie Rie and their work can usually be relied on to dominate the top price slots.

Two copies of Alcoholics Anonymoussigned by the founder of movement, Bill Wilson, were among the more successful lots in an August 15 Pacific Book Auctions sale of ‘Books in all Fields’.

A set of paintings, including two by Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens, have been stolen from a country house in Ireland that has now been targeted four times by thieves, police said.

COMPLEX bureaucracy and form filling are the biggest threat to small business – the backbone of the European art market – says Anthony Browne, chairman of the British Art Market Federation.

THE Italian painter Pietro Annigoni (1910-1988) is forever associated in English minds with his dramatic 1955 portrait of The Queen, which now hangs in The National Portrait Gallery and which still has plenty of admirers, including HM herself.

Fishermen’s tales are usually too tall to swallow, and the following account of a frenzied struggle on a Dorset riverbank in May 1912 would be scarcely credible were it not for the stuffed and cased evidence, right.

It’s difficult to imagine how many children and would-be children have enjoyed a trip on this very original ride since it was first constructed by Savage Bros Ltd of Kings Lynn in 1901. Known as Harry Lee’s Famous Steam Double Yacht Ride, its two yachts, Columbia and Shamrock, carry an impressive capacity of 30 passengers.

Internationally recognised specialist carriage auctioneers Thimbleby & Shoreland (6% buyer’s premium) rated their quarterly outing on September 4 outing in Reading as one of their best yet. “We were lucky to have quite a few pieces in the sale which were a bit different,” said specialist Sarah Needham.

THEY LIKE a good sermon in this part of the world and in this September sale, a 1611 (seventh or eighth?) edition of the sermons of Henry Smith, a puritan divine who was known as “silver-tongued Smith”, and whose collected wisdom first appeared in print in 1592, sold at £320 (Humber) in a binding of contemporary calf gilt, while a 350pp manuscript collection of sermons, this time bound in 19th century calf, made £1100 (Lachman).

This impressive equine statuette, right, proved to be the high point of Bonhams’ September 18 sale of British ceramics and glass at Bond Street. The 163/4in (42.5cm) high model decorated in cream and black is set on a rectangular plinth sponged and painted in green, blue and pink.

THE continuing fall in equities and the threat of war in Iraq have supported the gold price, say precious metal dealers Michael Bloomstein of Brighton.

THE RICS have announced details of their 2002 Fine Arts Conference, which will be held in Amsterdam from November 14-17. Highlights of the conference include a day at the Rijksmuseum prior to its renovation next year during which time its displays will be significantly reduced.

Benefiting from the long summer gap but seeing the best-and-rest polarisation that affects most categories of the art market these days, there were mixed results for Christie’s South Kensington’s 299-lot sale of Selected Silver on September 10.

Only the idealists of the Arts and Crafts movement could transform a humble display of wares into a decorative work of art, and the small manufacturing firm of Jesson Birkett and Co. had done just that with this sample board, right, offered at Bonhams’ Oxford sale on 17 September.

THE Coppa Italia is the Italian equivalent of the English FA cup. When the example shown right was won by Torino in 1943 it was the second occasion on which they had taken home the trophy.