UK

In last week’s ATG we revealed how a sketchily catalogued box of over 130 19th century photographs estimated at £80-120 in a Cumbrian auction house proved to be a cache of images made by the early daguerreotype process and ended up selling to Ken Jacobson for £75,000.

IT was a case of sweet and sour as two headline-grabbing London auctions came to an end before a bid could be raised last week.

A substantial portion of the antiques stolen from Ramsbury Manor, near Marlborough in Wiltshire, on February 1, have been recovered near Stratford-upon-Avon.

There was high drama at Lyon and Turnbull’s Edinburgh saleroom on March 26 when this celadon moonflask, left, estimated at £2000-3000, shot to a house record £275,000 (plus 19.5/12% buyer’s premium).

Before embarking on his 1907-09 expedition to the Antarctic, Ernest Shackleton sent Ernest Joyce and Frank Wild on a crash course in printing and had a press and associated materials loaded onto the Nimrod.

Following its recent discovery by a metal detectorist in the south of England, one of Britain’s rarest medieval coins is to be sold by London numismatists Spink.

For those collectors of Ronson lighters and Guinness Memorabilia who were unable to make the trip to Yorkshire in person, online bidding was the perfect solution to participate in Tennants sale of Saturday, March 18.

"Lot 132. A 19th century mahogany box containing a quantity of 19th century photographs: 15 small images of stonework on metal, 50 images of buildings on metal, 70 small images of buildings on metal and 14 of buildings on card. Box poor condition, many images poor condition."

When Buckingham auctioneer John Dickins sold an ebony mantel clock by the pioneering British designer C.F.A. Voysey in September 2004 for £72,000 (see ATG No 1658, October 2, 2004) he was naturally delighted. These highly desirable icons of arts and crafts horology are very scarce (only half a dozen in aluminium, oak or painted oak had been recorded at that point) so a new addition to the canon was noteworthy.

LIVE bidding from ATG's online service the-saleroom.com got off to a smooth start on March 15 at Donnington Priory.

Bloomsbury Auctions are opening a Contemporary art department to compete for a share of London's burgeoning market.

TWO provincial salerooms have been revived and another is under new ownership as the UK auction scene enters the traditionally busy spring season.

A magnificent Charles II silver fluted fruit sideboard dish saved from export in 2005 is now on display at the Royal College of Physicians. It will be displayed alongside their existing collection of memorabilia relating to Sir Francis Prujean, the President of the Royal College of Physicians (1650-1654) whose life-saving cures were recorded in Pepys’ diaries.

The UK’s leading art charity has commissioned its first-ever work by a contemporary artist as part of a campaign to boost funding for the arts.

This exceptional Regency centre table shot to £96,000 (plus premium) at Bearnes of Exeter on March 1.

A THIEF who used a key to get into a display cabinet and avoided being filmed on CCTV has made off with two unusual artefacts from a museum in Surrey.

On March 15 Dreweatt Neate are pioneering a live auction online with a difference at their Donnington Priory salerooms near Newbury.

He’s used to wrestling with evil wizard Lord Voldemort, but for Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe there’s more magic in owning a family tree hand-written by J.K. Rowling.

The Great Grooms brand of upmarket antiques centres is to move to London’s Furniture Cave.

HENRY Sandon, the acknowledged leading authority on Worcester porcelain, has been awarded the Freedom of the City of London. The ceremony took place at the Guildhall on February 28, where Mr Sandon then gave the annual Ravenscroft lecture at Glaziers Hall SE1, an event staged by the Glass-Sellers’ Company.