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The UK’s complex art-lending scene is a pale shadow of its US counterpart. However, a new law could change all that – if loans against art works can be registered.

A rare early photographic instrument – bought for a song by a member of the BBC’s Antiques Road Trip team – sold for £20,000 at Lacy Scott & Knight (17.5% buyer’s premium) in Bury St Edmunds on May 13.

An online platform for trading shares in artworks could become a reality if a new company manages to meet its fundraising target.

Auctioneers are again being warned to check addresses with shippers following reports of bidding scams.

It has been 50 years since the Beatles released their eighth studio album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band to universal acclaim.

ATG’s selection of auction lots bought by internet bidders on thesaleroom.com from the period May 11-17, 2017. This includes both the highest prices over estimate and the top prices paid online.

Summers Place Auctions in Billingshurst is well known for its Garden Statuary and Natural History sales. Now it is adding a new category to the portfolio.

Duke’s of Dorchester posted the top regional Asian art price of the season on May 18 when Wu Guanzhong’s (1919-2010) scroll painting White Birches on Mount Chang Bai (Zhangbai) sold at £500,000 (plus buyer’s premium).

Early Dutch discoveries in Australia and those made in Tasmania and New Zealand on Abel Tasman’s first voyage are outlined in a 1659 wall-map by the Amsterdam cartographer Joan Blaeu (1596-1673).

The late Hubert Dingwall began a lifetime of book collecting in 1935 with the purchase of a vellum bound copy of the second part only of a 1697 Antwerp edition of Don Quixote for one shilling and sixpence.

Three substantial sales from Edinburgh to Exeter via Doncaster last month confirmed the promise of early spring with the staple areas of furniture, silver and ceramics holding up and, for named or specialist-interest material, doing well. The figures underline the overall buoyancy.

An unexpected highlight of an April 28-29 sale held by Brussels saleroom The Romantic Agony (24% buyer’s premium), was a leaf from an illuminated manuscript.

The big surprise at Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood'’s April 11-12 sale at Exeter was this 17th-18th century Tyrolean wood and gilt crucifix.

The Conservative Party has omitted any mention of ivory in its 2017 manifesto published last week, giving hope an uncompromising ban on the trade will not be introduced.

Made by Paul Storr, highly decorative and from the family collection of the late Sir Nicholas Harington, this 1836 piece of silver had the name, the look and the provenance to overcome the somewhat unfashionable nature of inkstands.

Coming up next at The Fine Art Society in Edinburgh is the exhibition Between Tides: Scotland’s Working Culture of the Sea.