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A sword owned by Benjamin Franklin will be offered at an upcoming Christie’s sale in New York, estimated at $200,000-300,000.

French Energy and Environment Minister Ségolène Royal has strengthened laws in France on elephant ivory – but appeared to stop well short of a total ban suggested earlier in the year.

A new antiques sourcing website, Looking for Antiques, has been launched after a construction period of nine years.

London Bridge is falling down, goes the song. A bit further upstream, it turns out that the Houses of Parliament are actually doing the falling down.

A temporary export bar has been placed on the coronet designed for Queen Victoria by her husband Prince Albert, giving UK buyers an opportunity to raise the £5m (plus £1m VAT) asking price to keep it in the country.

Salisbury auction house Woolley & Wallis are opening a Mayfair office.

With his trademark fez and deceptively shambolic stage persona, Tommy Cooper was one of Britain’s best known TV personalities. Now the Victoria & Albert Museum is acknowledging his fame and popularity with the announcement that they have acquired the comedian’s memorabilia collection.

A four-day sale of the contents of a Norfolk country house being conducted by Keys at their Aylsham rooms will include on September 8-9 the vast library formed by Ron Fiske at Morningthorpe Manor.

This George III coconut cup with silver strapwork mounts sold by Lyon & Turnbull of Edinburgh provides a glimpse of the close relationship that existed between Scotland and Russia in the late 18th century.

Not all copies of Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone that bear a tell-tale typo sometimes signifying the first edition, first run of the book are the real deal.

A collection of Muhammad Ali memorabilia is being sold in a Dallas saleroom following an outpouring of related consignments from the public in light of the boxer’s death.

The imminent arrival of Crossrail services in London are threatening the character of the Hatton Garden jewellery quarter.

A series of Old Master drawings from the collection of Brian Sewell have had their attributions upgraded in advance of the auction of the late art critic’s collection in London next month. They include two long-unattributed works that have now been ascribed to named 16th century Italian artists.

When in the middle of the century Suffolk collector Hugh Marsham Townshend (1878-1967) was amassing a collection of gold-mounted porcelain scent bottles and other trinkets, most were thought to be the products of the Chelsea porcelain works or a shadowy enterprise known as the ‘Girl in a Swing’ factory.

An auction of a Thracian coin – minted in the city of Apollonia Pontica (in modern-day Bulgaria) in the 4th or 5th century BC – was halted by eBay on the grounds the listing was ‘hateful or discriminatory’.

A painting by Irish artist Jack B Yeats owned by the late David Bowie will be offered at Sotheby’s in November.

Hutchinson Scott is set to hold its first sale in two years after the founder of the Yorkshire auction house came out of retirement and helped his son restart the family business.

Two Cubist works by Fernand Léger (1881-1955) lead a potentially lucrative line-up of pictures at Chicago saleroom Leslie Hindman’s auction next month.

New York-based appraisers Leigh and Lesley Keno, two of the best-known faces of the US version of TV programme Antiques Roadshow, are facing increasing scrutiny as their debts mount with a string of regional auction houses.

The ashes of author Truman Capote are to go under the hammer at a Los Angeles auction of entertainment memorabilia next month.