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The artist might have been unknown, the subject unconfirmed, but this unsigned 133/4 x 173/4in (35 x 45cm) Victorian oil, right, of figures on the deck of a yacht was nonetheless the most hotly contested lot at Stride & Son’s (15% buyer’s premium) August 29 sale in Chichester.

On an April morning of this year, Guy Davis, book consultant to Bamfords of Derby, gave an interview on BBC Radio Derby in which he talked about a copy of the first Rupert annual of 1936 that was to be sold at auction later that same day.

Consigned to Sworders by a dealer who had bought it when clearing a London office, this George III patent extending mahogany dining table created a massive amount of interest when offered by the Stansted Mountfitchet auctioneers on September 9. “When it arrived it was so obviously a good thing,” said specialist Guy Schooling who found two potential candidates for the maker, S. Martin, whose name and the inscription Invenit et Fecit appeared on a brass plaque applied to the base.

Bailey, BADA and local firm all in action making September a month the town will remember: Well-used to antiques as they are, the citizens of Harrogate will be spoilt for choice this month with two major fairs in different parts of town, mercifully with a five-day gap between them.

IF his 34th Cheshire Autumn Antiques and Fine Art Fair at Tatton Park over the weekend of September 4 to 7 was an indicator then Robert Bailey’s Harrogate fair should turn over nicely.

ALL 43 exhibitors at Caroline Penman’s Petersfield Antiques Fair enjoyed some business at the Festival Hall from September 5 to 7 with a majority reporting good sales.

Fred T. Jane is a turn-of-the-century artist who doesn’t make much of an impact in the sort of standard reference works that line the office walls of serious auctioneers and dealers.

With the retirement at the end of this month of the Alnwick auctioneer Ian Robertson, Newcastle-upon-Tyne auctioneers Anderson & Garland are to assume control of the 40-year-old business.

North Yorkshire auctioneers Tennants, who bought the Heathcote Ball name earlier this year, are to open a consignment office in Leicester this month but have no plans to hold auctions in the Midlands.

DECO continues to be very much the field in favour and, while it is making its presence felt at fairs at all levels, you will be hard-pressed to find a location more in sympathy with the style than Eltham Palace in South London.

FIRST out of the pack of September quality fairs is the oldest, The Chelsea Antiques Fair, which was founded in 1950 and runs again at Chelsea Old Town Hall in the King’s Road, London SW3 from September 17 to 22.

OF all the imminent fairs, the one for which market omens are most favourable is the popular 20/21 British Art Fair, which will take place at the Commonwealth Institute, Kensington High Street, London W8 from September 17 to 21. While the art and antiques industry has been reeling in recent years, one area which has consistently bucked the trend is 20th century British art.

CHISWICK-based dealer in studio pottery, Joanna Bird, presents her seventh annual exhibition at Browse & Darby, 19 Cork Street, London W1, from September 15 to 20, centred on the work of eight leading contemporary potters, Elizabeth Fritsch, Julian Stair, Edward Hughes, William Plumptre, John Spearman, Daniel Fisher, Michael O’ Brien and Danlami Aliyu.

LINCOLNSHIRE-based Grosvenor Exhibitions are professional organisers in a number of fields, not just antiques, but they are upping their antiques profile with a new Midlands fair scheduled for December.

ONE thing you cannot accuse DMG Antiques Fairs of is resting on their laurels. Their Newark International Antiques & Collectors Fair, held six times a year at the Nottinghamshire showground, is Europe’s biggest.

FAIRS dominate the diary this week as they do the current trade scene generally, but that it not to say dealers have forgotten the arts of self-promotion. Celebrating the 50th anniversary of his business, J. Collins & Sons, Devonshire dealer John Biggs is best known as a period furniture dealer. But he always carries a good stock of paintings and holds his 47th picture show at his showrooms at 28 High Street, Bideford this month.

THE list of manufacturers who made cocktail shakers and accessories in the interwar years reads like a roll-call of the great luxury houses of the early 20th century: Asprey, Cartier, Tiffany, Hermès, Alfred Dunhill, Louis Vuitton, Puiforcat, Lalique and Baccarat. However, the firm responsible for some of today’s most coveted cocktail shakers is J.A. Henckels of Dusseldorf.

Monart glass specialist and collector Ian Turner is a familiar name to many in the trade, having devoted the last two decades to buying and researching this vividly coloured 20th century Scottish art glass. In addition to building a 260-piece collection, he has also contributed to several books including Ysart Glass, edited by Frank Andrews, 1990.

THE Wallace Collection’s exhibition From Palace to Parlour, A Celebration of 19th century British Glass may not shed any new academic light on the subject but it draws attention to a period often ignored by traditional glass collectors: the 19th century. “The 19th century has been completely overlooked,” says independent scholar and glass consultant Martine Newby who curated the exhibition on behalf of the Glass Circle.

The snuff mull is one of the most common Scottish silver forms – but shown here are three examples that proved a few cuts above the norm. Top right: favourite Victorian entry at Bonhams’ Scottish Sale was a ram’s head table snuff mull by Mackay & Chisholm of Edinburgh, 1880.