East of England

THE Cecil Higgins Art Gallery & Bedford Museum have secured this unique piece of furniture at a price of £850,000.

A TAXIDERMY rhinoceros head mount has been stolen Sworders auction house in Stansted Mountfitchet in what police believe was a raid planned by professional thieves.

ESTIMATED at £3000-4000, this 18th century mahogany decanter box retaining a pair of profusely cut double-magnum sized decanters c.1780, attracted multiple bidders at Suffolk saleroom Neal Sons & Fletcher of Woodbridge.

LIGHT has been shed on the £52,000 price tag awarded an oak and gilt-bronze coffer on stand at a Sworders Interiors sale.

THIS late 18th/early 19th century Native American ball-head club made a house record when it sold for £33,000 at Charles Ross auctioneers in Woburn, Bedfordshire.

THE trial of a man accused of the burglary of a number of remote country houses in East Anglia has begun in Ipswich Crown Court.

THIS 20in (50cm) high gilt and clear glass vase of Islamic inspiration is the central element of the three-piece garniture discovered by Rayleigh, Essex auctioneers Staceys in a home near Southend-on-Sea.

EXCITING plenty of bidding against its £500-800 estimate at Ely-based saleroom Rowley's was this rare 9in (22.5cm) early 17th century engraved horn shoehorn.

The late Fred Dibnah's 1912 Aveling and Porter Ltd steam tractor fetched £240,000 at Cheffins vintage auction on July 24, selling to Michael Oliver, chairman of Knutsford-based manufacturer Oliver Valves.

EAST Anglia auctioneers Sworders have ceased holding sales in Sudbury. The former Olivers saleroom in Burkitt’s Lane, Sudbury will now become an office and storage facility with all future consignments removed for sale to Stansted Mountfitchet.

SALVO, the leading architectural salvage and garden antiques fair, is being repositioned to capitalise on the increasing popularity of reclaimed artefacts among upmarket architects, designers and decorators.

THE unexpected highlight of the sale conducted by Cheffins of Cambridge on June 9-10 came courtesy of this mahogany writing table. Estimated at £4000-6000, it sold at £68,000 (plus 17.5 per cent buyer's premium).

MOST Star Wars aficionados are familiar with the story of the Flintshire pensioner who bought 20 Palitoy action figures for 49p each in 1978 and sold them at Stockton-on-Tees toy specialists Vectis for a small fortune in 2003.

There has been a happy ending to the century-long story of a missing pub sign painted in 1899 by Arts and Crafts artist Walter Crane for the Fox and Pelican pub in the Hampshire village of Grayshott.

ATG No 1871, January 3, 2009, featured a letter from Richard Peskett of the Grayshott Village Archive appealing for information about the whereabouts of the lost original pub sign from the Hampshire village’s only public house, The Fox and Pelican.

The Norwich dealer James Brett is to sell 300 pieces of his stock of English and Continental furniture and decorative items in a single-vendor sale at Sworders of Stansted Mountfitchet on March 9.

WOODBRIDGE, Suffolk saleroom Neal Sons & Fletcher included a small collection of post-War silver by Robert Welch, Gerald Benney and Stuart Devlin in their November 18 sale.

THIS diminutive table seen at Cambridge auctioneers Cheffins on the second day of their September 23-24 sale was a miniature version of the famous circular expanding dining table designed by Robert Jupe of Welbeck Street, London.

THE dealer who bounced a cheque at Durrants Auction Rooms, reported in last week's ATG has come forward to say it was a 'hiccup' and the bill will be paid.

DURRANTS Auction Rooms have issued an alert about a man claiming to be an antiques dealer from Belgium, who has recently bounced a cheque for nearly £3500 at their rooms.