Art finance

UK: A hand-held electronic device which will allow antiques dealers to accept credit and debit cards at fairs and markets has just been launched by Barclaycard Merchant Services. The mobile point-of-sale terminal, which is about twice the size of a mobile phone, will allow dealers to accept card payments in locations where this would have been impossible previously due to a lack of a landline and power supply.

LIKE many other provincial auctioneers, the Bath operation of the Phillips empire – now the centre for collection points at Cardiff, Bristol and Sherborne, profited from the major fairs in June when their 332-lot sale on May 21 saw a take-up of 83 per cent and a predominance of trade buyers buying to sell on in London.

UK: IT HAS just been announced exclusively to the Antiques Trade Gazette that the Heberden Coin Room at the Ashmolean Museum, which holds one of the most comprehensive collections of coins and medals in the world, has received a very substantial grant to update and rewrite the history of Greek coins from their invention (c.630BC) to Alexander the Great (d.323BC).

UK: PRICES for standard silver remain subdued but the 330 lots of plate and silver offered here did include nine four-figure bids and enjoyed an 86 per cent take-up and a total of £96,600.

IT APPEARS that simple economics may be catching up with eBay sellers, at least in the antiques and collectibles sector. Everyone knows the law of supply and demand: if supply is low and demand high, prices go up. If supply is high and demand doesn’t increase accordingly, prices go down.

SALES to overseas buyers now account for 63 per cent of business among members of the British Antique Dealers Association, according to BADA’s latest survey for 1999/2000.

Last updated 12 June 2001

UK: THE Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge is celebrating a £425,000 Lottery windfall that has helped it acquire a stunning coin collection.

Sotheby’s find a warm welcome in Wales with record bid and active museum interest UK: THE strong, and occasionally extraordinary, demand for Celtic art, both Scottish and Irish, has been a feature of the art market for years and has warranted specialist picture sales devoted to those country’s painters.

The growth of the Internet, and the reluctance of the biggest auctioneers to deal with low-value goods, has helped provincial auctioneers win more business.

THREE men have been charged with joining together to drive up prices for items they were selling on Internet auctions on EBay. The charges include one linked to a sale in which a Dutch user bid $135,000 for a fake Richard Diebenkorn painting.

UK: Dealers and auctioneers in the worst affected areas have told the Antiques Trade Gazette of their struggle as the trade braces itself for a third month of business blighted by the Foot and Mouth epidemic.

Christie’s report record sales as rivals lose market share

US: THERE may be plenty of people talking about economic downturn in the US but, for the moment at least, American dog lovers retain a healthy enthusiasm for their particular corner of the picture market.

DRAMATIC swings in the prices of precious metals over the past week have seen platinum rise by 13p per gram while silver has fallen by 9p an ounce.

US: FEARS of an economic downturn seem to have almost as much effect in the United States as any downturn itself, and there was much talk of recession in the run-up to this year’s Palm Beach International Art and Antiques Fair, the Florida phenomenon which organiser David Lester has taken to the premier league in just five years.

US: RECENT jitters about the health of the US economy have had a noticeably negative effect on several sectors of the international auction market. The US wine market, however, seems to be relatively untouched as yet.

THERE are yet two major Sotheby’s sales of last December to report – the Travel & Map sale of December 14 and the English Literature & History sale of December 19 – but as there are no 2001 Sotheby’s sales scheduled until May, there is no fear of an overlap, and these sales aside, the three brief reports that appear below bring my wider coverage of the old year’s book sales to a close.

UK: FOR the record, a final mention of the busy pre-Christmas sales...

UK: THERE was a time when any antique eyebath brought a gleam to the eyes of auctioneers, but one might have thought those days had passed. Not so, if the reaction to an example offered in the Dorking Halls sale is anything to go by.