Lincolnshire

In these days of the internet search engine and the live bidding platform, it is reassuring to know that bargains are still out there.

Michael Mills and his family, the new owners of the now renamed Antiques & Retro Antiques Centre at Hemswell Cliff, launched their business on May 1.

Intended to keep servants warm in the draughty watches of day and night at the entrances to grand houses, this porter’s chair was bought at Christie’s in 1989 and used in the vendor’s living room ever since.

“Due to our digital presence with our website, social media and the live virtual shopping tours I have been conducting all over the world my skeleton team of 10 staff have been kept extremely busy.”

This 22-carat gold and enamel egg was the largest of a baker’s dozen made by Garrard in 1983 for a treasure hunt organised by Cadbury’s.

Until its sale last year, Newbold Pacey Hall had been the seat of the Little family since the house was built by William Little in c.1780-90.

Golding Young & Mawer is to offer the untouched collection of a Warwickshire country house at the end of the month.

This sailor’s walking cane below displays many elements of the scrimshander’s art: a whalebone shaft carved with spiral fluting, collars inlaid with shell from the hawksbill turtle and a handle carved as a dove from the tooth of a sperm whale.

The centuries-old Indonesian habit of chewing betel nut, the fruit of the reach palm, was quickly adopted by settlers from the Dutch East India Company who appreciated both its psychoactive properties and its importance as a local social ritual.

While Manchester United and early FA Cup match programmes often make the big money at auction, a group on offer at a West Sussex saleroom showed that far less famous names can also make the running.

Ken tanto, distinguished by double-edged blades, are one of the rarer styles of Japanese sword. Most were made as Buddhist ritual implements rather than weapons and are decorated accordingly.

Novelty inkwells such as this one modelled as a miniature six-bolt diving helmet and corselet were made by the Siebe Gorman works in Chessington, south-west London, as promotional giveaways or gifts to staff on employment milestones or retirement.

The artist Henri Jules Jean Geoffroy (1853-1924), known as ‘Géo’, was a member of the French Naturalist movement and was best known for his paintings of Parisian children and daily urban life.

On first appearance, Hemswell Antique Centres is your traditional dealer collective, only with more space and dealers than any other centre in Europe.

The sale at Kingham & Orme (20% buyer’s premium) in Evesham on December 6-7 included the second instalment of the remarkable Shennan collection of silver mustard pots, this time featuring examples made in the reigns of George IV to Victoria (1821-1901).

Arthur Swallow’s busy vintage monthly fleamarket runs at the Lincoln Showground.

Selling at some 20 times the estimate, a 19th century mahogany-cased music box was the surprise success at Batemans’ (20% buyer’s premium) sale at Stamford on October 5.

Two modestly estimated watercolours by the Victorian ornithological painter Archibald Thorburn (1860-1935) emerged as the star sellers in an auction in South Yorkshire.