UK

Coin-grading firm The Certified Collectibles Group (CCG) has expanded again in the UK and will open an office in London in April on the third floor of dealership Spink’s headquarters.

The long-term future of the historic London Silver Vaults is uncertain as the landlord weighs up options for the building.

A small collection of 18th century European porcelain offered by Reeman Dansie in Colchester included this Meissen teapot and cover c.1725.

A country house library in south-west Scotland was the source of an album of 19th century photographs of India that provided a Valentine’s Day surprise at Lyon & Turnbull in Edinburgh.

This oil painting of the RMS Queen Mary, below, by marine painter William McDowell (1888-1950) was taken to a multi-estimate £12,000 at Surrey saleroom John Nicholson’s (24% buyer’s premium).

Look around at any edition of the Decorative Antiques and Textiles Fair and there will be dealers hastily rehanging and restocking empty spaces on their stands.

Tim Wilkes, a leading expert in Islamic coinage, has joined the coin department at London auction house Dix Noonan Webb.

Specialists who relaunched North Yorkshire auction house generate old-school optimism.

Chiswick Auctions (25/12% buyer’s premium) has held its first dedicated Old Masters sale, capitalising on the void left by Christie’s South Kensington’s closure last year.

Silver dealer Alastair Dickenson had a blast from the past when he flicked through the pages of ATG recently.

“The selling price was really encouraging,” said Chichester auctioneer Peter Parker after an 18th century walnut chest made £5800, “but it just emphasises how polarised the market is between the top end and the rest.”

Antiques dealer and fair organiser Marcus Potts is an Art Deco and early 20th century ceramics man, but he is an absolute mine of information on vintage toys.

Another classic piece of English furniture to go well above expectations was a Regency mahogany window seat in the style of George Bullock offered by the Cumbrian firm 1818 Auctioneers (17/12% buyer’s premium).

The Specialist Glass Fair, founded in 1991 by Patricia Hier and run for 16 years by Paul Bishop, will be held on Sunday, February 25.

This late 19th century ‘natural history’ specimen purports to be the mummified body of a creature that was half mammal and half fish.

As with the overall market, Dutch furniture is much less popular than it once was and the 18th century walnut, floral marquetry and ivory-inlaid bombé bureau cabinet, below, had a couple of condition problems for bidders at Andrew Smith (19% buyer’s premium).

The great Hungarian love affair with Zsolnay Pec ceramics goes on, most recently witnessed in the East Sussex rooms of Burstow & Hewett (15% buyer’s premium) when 27 lots were offered.

Further discoveries from recent New York and London auctions including polar rarities.

Kate and Mike Button of Black Dog Antiques in the market town of Halesworth in Suffolk, also run the monthly Halesworth Brocante which they launched two years ago in the town’s Old Print Works.

Children’s author Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) and Indian activist Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) don’t seem to have much in common. At separate auctions held later this month, however, both will have correspondence appearing on the market for the first time.