UK

The final 51 lots of Woolley & Wallis’s sale on October 19 comprised the Fauconberg & Conyers Heirlooms.

“Someday,” wrote The Times in August 1912, “collectors will ransack the town for Martin’s artistic stonewares.”

POLICE are appealing for information following the theft of four stuffed heads of wild animals that were stolen from a Leicestershire house.

Yorkshire auctioneers and valuers DDM have joined a growing list of regional firms who have gone into receivership.

COIN dealers Noble Investments have announced the acquisition of Baldwin’s, the London-based coin dealers and auctioneers, in a reverse take-over.

The cosy Dorset town of Sherborne is not usually associated with bloody revolution and armed struggle, but Sherborne-based Charterhouse Auctioneers have unearthed two items redolent with memories of the American Revolution.

Police in Hartley Wintney, Hampshire, are investigating a series of thefts from antiques shops and galleries in the area over the last month, which officers believe are linked.

Setting a new house record for Holloways of Banbury, this enigmatic alabaster urn shot to £170,000 (plus 15% buyer’s premium) on October 18.

There will be a rare chance to glimpse some of the long unseen areas of Beijing’s Forbidden City on November 28, when Henry Tzu Ng of the World Monuments Fund will deliver a lecture at the Royal Academy in conjunction with their forthcoming exhibition – China: The Three Emperors, 1662-1795.

When the Troika pottery in Newlyn closed its doors in 1983 its moulds were secured for posterity, not in a local museum or the collection of a Troika devotee but in a garden shed in Northumberland.

THE 20th century fashion and accessories sales at Christie’s South Kensington (20/12% buyer’s premium) are not the firm’s biggest money-spinners.

When Alex Butcher’s eye was drawn to this painting, right, he did not realise that part of the attraction might have been its familiarity.

With perfect timing in advance of the forthcoming biopic starring Renee Zellweger as Beatrix Potter, the lecture at this year’s AGM of the British Antique Furniture Restorer’s Association was entitled Beatrix Potter – A Pioneer in Regional Furniture Discovery.

London coin and stamp specialists Spink have been awarded an additional Royal Warrant for their services in philately.

Pictured right is a Yongzheng period (1723-1735) egg-yolk yellow ground ‘cranes’ bowl that was offered on the second day of a three-day sale conducted by Bamfords in Derby from September 13-15.

Places are still available for this October on the MA course in Decorative Arts and Historic Interiors, based at the Wallace Collection.

POLICE are warning antiques dealers to look out for the two men, pictured left, who they believe are professional thieves targeting antiques centres and shops.

HOARDINGS will shortly go up at London’s largest antiques market as Southwark Council announced that construction work for redeveloping Bermondsey market will begin before the end of the year.

Auctioneers in Essex are being asked to exercise extra vigilence after Colchester auctioneers Reeman Dansie had an unwelcome visitor return to their salerooms on August 9.

The well-known Worcestershire firm Andrew Grant are expected to close their fine art auction department.