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An alarming rise in violent robberies on antiques dealers in Portobello Road has spurred them into action to call for better police cover, CCTV cameras and even private security guards.

The auction business often runs counter-cyclical to wider economic fortunes, so it’s no great surprise that the strong results posted in 2011 by many of Britain’s regional auctioneers have been mirrored across the Atlantic.

London auctioneers Morton & Eden, in association with Sotheby’s, have included in their May 31 sale this silver medal awarded to a steward aboard the RMS Carpathia for his help in rescuing passengers from the Titanic.

A collection of work by the late Sid Pollard, a well-known Yorkshire furniture maker, will go under the hammer at Addison’s sale in Barnard Castle, County Durham, on June 2.

A new insurance company are trying to plug what they see as a gap in the market for auction guarantees between $10,000 and $1.5m.

ATG posed a number of questions to Art Auction Guarantee. Here is a summary.

What may be a record price for the Poole artist Guy Sydenham was achieved at Cottees of Wareham when a stoneware model of a baby rhinoceros sold for £5000 at their latest sale.

Tributes have been paid to an antiques dealer who was drowned along with his three-year-old son in a boating accident.

Two more churches have been hit by thieves in the latest of a series of break-ins targeting medieval monuments and carvings.

This Victorian achromatic cabinet stereoscope was one of the more unusual offerings among the 540 lots offered at Dee Atkinson & Harrison’s recent sale at Driffield and proved the stand-out seller.

Sold at Sotheby’s in London this week, this Andy Warhol (1928-1987) portrait of Brigitte Bardot was formerly owned by her ex-husband, the German billionaire Gunter Sachs whose collection of art and furniture came to auction following his suicide last year.

A couple of pieces of Staffordshire pottery set the Banbury rooms of Holloway’s buzzing back when online bidding took off.

Duncan Campbell was a remarkable and unconventional dealer. His gallery in Thackeray Street, Kensington, was packed with pretty much anything that caught his eye, whether it was paintings, prints, pottery, furniture, or tribal art.

Exhibition: Angela Palmer at Waterhouse & Dodd

David Stanley Auctions offered the second part of the collection of woodworking tools formed by David R. Russell, renowned for the rarest and finest Norris planes.

For the second time in three years Middlesex saleroom Bainbridge’s turned up the most talked-about consignment of the recent Asian art sales.

The English Supreme Court has ruled that expert witnesses will no longer enjoy immunity from civil lawsuits when giving evidence in either civil or criminal legal proceedings.

Comment: Nicholas Somers, FNAVA. FRSA.

Sotheby’s auction and related revenues were down 12% at $105m year on year for the first quarter of 2012.

It appears that Tate Britain have changed their tune on L.S. Lowry.