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G.E. Sworder & Sons, Stansted Mountfitchet, March 16 Buyer’s premium: 10 per cent UK: "CERAMICS and collectables are usually well received by the trade, but at this 1000-lot sale they were met with a muted response, silver and jewellery were eagerly sought after while the furniture met with a keen response from trade and private buyers,” said auctioneer Guy Schooling.

The flying logbook of Fred Shaw, an RCAF navigator, received quite a lot of media publicity when Sotheby’s Sussex announced its sale, because of a suggestion that it sheds light on the disappearance of bandleader Glenn Miller in December 1944.

Comtemporary Ceramics UK: WITH THEIR big event scheduled for June, Bonhams (15/10 per cent buyer’s premium) March 25 Contemporary Ceramics sale was very much a mid-season affair.

Ewbank, Send, March 25 Buyer’s premium: 10 per cent UK: An amusing, illustrated letter sent by the 16-year-old Edward Coley Burne Jones to his aunt Amelia on May 7, 1849, topped this sale with a London bid of £880.

Carolean court cupboard emerges from Cumbrian chicken shed UK: EARLY oak furniture attracted the higher prices at the quarterly sale ‘Antiques and Collectors’ sale at the Skirsgill Salerooms in Cumbria where the most valuable lot was a James II one-piece oak court cupboard.

UK: AT this two-day, 1112-lot sale in East Sussex auctioneer Mark Hudson was pleased to see a broader buying base than has been the case at many rooms of late saying: “Middle-range furniture featured at the beginning of the furniture section was easy to sell.”

UK: FIGURES released by the Heritage Lottery Fund show that despite the rapid decline in new grants being allocated for acquisitions by museums and galleries, existing allocations still account for a large percentage of capital spending.

UK: THE VALUE of art and antiques imported into Britain from outside the EU last year came close to parity with exports for the first time since 1973, when the UK was last a net importer in this field. According to Customs & Excise records for 1998, exports of art and antiques rose slightly to £1318m, but imports were up by 52 per cent at £1316m.

UK: MORE than 13,500 archaeological items were found and recorded in the first year of a Government scheme to register historical finds, a new report reveals.

ARTS Minister Alan Howarth has announced a new list of works accepted for the nation in lieu of tax.

UK: PROBABLY commissioned by General Charles Churchill – whose arms it bears – for his European campaigns after the Glorious Revolution of 1688, this William and Mary silver-gilt travelling set came up at Mellors & Kirk of Nottingham on March 25-26 where it sold privately at £48,000 (plus 10 per cent premium).

US: How do you titillate an ocelot? You oscillate its tit a lot. Kenny Everett’s immortal insight into the sexual life of one of the obscurer members of the cat family is usually quite difficult to drag into an auction report. But how can titillation be resisted when someone is prepared to pay $525,000 (£324,075) for this painting of an ocelot at Sotheby’s New York (15/10 per cent buyer’s premium).

US: ONE of 167 illustrations which make up Frans Masereel’s My Book of Hours, one of the woodcut novels pioneered by the Belgian political cartoonist in the early part of this century.

UK: A MAJOR loan exhibition of Dutch and Flemish cabinet pictures opens at Richard Green’s gallery at 33 New Bond Street, London W1 this week.

UK: THE highlight of the Natural History sale held by Christie’s on March 17 – a lot which had its own separate catalogue – was the Moller Florilegium.

UK: AFTER extensive coverage in the relevant media (not least the many column inches given over to the subject in the Antiques Trade Gazette), Minton majolica productions are a pretty well-known quantity in the salerooms today.

UK: Maria Szantho (b. 1898-?) was a Hungarian artist who specialised in glamour girl nudes which crop up with some regularity in the salerooms, generally at prices between £500-3000.

UK: AROUND this time of the month it’s always a pleasure to report from that most elegant of cities, Bath where, as readers will know, members of the Bath and Bradford on Avon Antique Dealers Association take turns each month to donate the sale price of an item of stock to the NSPCC.

US Round-Up (February-March Pt.II) THE FIRST 350 lots of the February 15-16 sale held by Pacific Auction Galleries comprised books from the library of the Zamorano Club, a society of book lovers, founded in 1928, which takes its name from the first known printer in California, Augustin Vicente Zamorano, who set up a press in Monterey in 1834.

UK: “PLACE the flattened end of the flagstaff in the socket made for it, then raise the hammer until it catches the base of the flag socket and remains upright: place a cap in the capholder and mount the soldiers along the trench.