Organisations

A project to create a free, comprehensive photo catalogue online of all the sculptures held in UK public collections has moved a step closer thanks to a £2.84m pledge of support from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Antiques Young Guns has announced it will launch the brand in the USA in 2015 through a new partnership with US Antiques Shows (USAS).

The Silver Society has announced its fifth annual series of evening seminars focusing on hallmarks, techniques, connoisseurship and the history of silver.

The chairman of one of the UK’s most successful provincial auction houses has joined the condemnation of Christie’s new 2% success fee, saying he is appalled by it.

The Association of Accredited Auctioneers (Triple A) are hosting a viewing event timed to coincide with Asian Art in London. This Qianlong ‘lotus and bats’ doucai jar and cover, estimated to bring £100,000-150,000 at Peter Wilson of Nantwich on November 27, is among the lots on view at Rountree Tryon Galleries of 7 Bury Street on November 2 from 12 noon-9pm.

Online auction site eBay plans to spin off its PayPal business into a separate publicly traded company next year.

It has taken just over a month for the Art Fund’s £2.74m appeal to save the Wedgwood Collection to reach its target. It will now be gifted to the V&A but will stay in situ at the Wedgwood Museum in Barlaston, near Stoke.

Soon after ATG reported that the public had contributed £700,000 in a matter of days to help the final push to save the Wedgwood archive, the news came through that close to £2m had been raised. Some £1.3m was donated in just four days.

The Art Fund has launched an appeal to raise the remaining £2.74m needed to save the Wedgwood collection from being split up and sold off.

The big comic story of the year – and one unlikely to be bettered – when two New York specialist dealers, Stephen Fisher and Vincent Zurzolo, paid $3.2m (£1.93m) for a copy of Action Comics No.1. When launched in June, 1938 it had originally cost just 10 cents.

Coins from the Late Iron Age and Republican Roman eras have been found buried together for the first time.

The Goldsmiths’ Company Assay Office want to help more UK provincial auctioneers spot fakes by inviting them to their Fakes and Forgeries seminars at Goldsmiths’ Hall in London.

Twelve years after their first online collaboration, Sotheby’s and eBay have formed a second partnership to stream Sotheby’s sales worldwide.

The British Antique Dealers’ Association is to issue provenance certificates for items sold by members as from this week.

The Art Fund have launched a new crowdfunding scheme to help museums and galleries, the first of which should also help boost the art and antiques trade around Hastings.

The awards party for the 2014 ‘Antiques Young Gun of the Year’ at Alfies Antiques Market was proof that there’s still life in the antiques trade yet.

David Juda of Annely Juda Fine Art has taken over from James Roundell of Dickinson as Chairman of The Society of London Art Dealers (SLAD). Mr Roundell was appointed chairman in July 2010.

The Company of Arts Scholars has been officially recognised as the 110th Livery Company of the City of London with the presentation of the Letters Patent by the Lord Mayor at the Mansion House.

The National Association of Valuers and Auctioneers (NAVA) are calling for entries for the 2014 NAVA Auctioneer of the Year competition, which will take place on September 24 at the Stratford Manor Hotel, Warwickshire.

Bedfordshire-based dealer James Gooch of Doe and Hope has been crowned the second Antiques Young Gun of the Year.