Hampshire

THESE are heady times for fairgoers, what with Maastricht, major events in New York and the BADA and Olympia in London. But life goes on, and thrives, nearer the all-important grass roots.

A MASKED gang took a substantial quantity of antique jewellery during a robbery at the Petersfield Antiques Fair held at the Festival Hall in the town from February 6-8.

FOLLOWING her first London fair of the year, East Sussex organiser Caroline Penman moves to the country for her popular Spring Petersfield Antiques Fair which will run at the Festival Hall in the Hampshire town from February 6 to 8.

AS autumn approaches, dealers are marking their diaries for some familiar calls and a favourite entry for the Home Counties trade will be The Petersfield Antiques Fair at The Festival Hall of the Hampshire town from September 5 to 7.

SPECIALIST items took three of the top-selling lots at this George Kidner Hampshire sale on 9 July. One was a 1731 pocket globe by Richard Cushee, a land surveyor, map and globe maker known to have been apprenticed to John Sellers Sr, a leading figure in the London map trade at the time.

AFTER 32 years in business, Peter Heraty of Andwells Antiques, Hartley Witney, Hampshire, tells me that on June 28 he “will lock the door for the last time”, a couple of weeks before his 66th birthday.

AUCTIONEER George Kidner admitted after this April 16 sale (15% buyer's premium) that he wished he’d been able to offer more of that currently under-regarded commodity, brown furniture, because while routine silver remains pretty dormant and there was little good jewellery to be found, good quality furniture, along with ceramics, was selling well, sometimes spectacularly so.

HAMPSHIRE dealers Millers Antiques offer a 20 per cent discount on all stock at their Open Weekend to be held at Netherbrook House, 86 Christchurch Road, Ringwood from May 9 to 12.

BETTER known for its polo club than its fine art, Cowdray Park in Midhurst, Sussex nevertheless provided Hampshire auctioneers Jacobs & Hunt with some talking points among a quantity of the “surplus to requirements” chattels the owners of the country pile had decided to get rid of.

TWO LOTS were bid to £800 in the 150-lot book and map portion of this Hampshire sale on 6 February at George Kidner, which put them some way ahead of most others on the day.

A privately sourced collection of jewellery boosted this first dispersal of the year in these Hampshire rooms at George Kidner on 9 January – “the bulk of the rest of the material was just good stock pieces”, said auctioneer Andrew Reeves.

Trade show strength in surprise bids on fresh-to-market pieces. If September 11 was a watershed in modern history, the way forward, as far as Hampshire auctioneers Dreweatt Neate were concerned, seems to be a retreat to how things used to be – good quality material from local private sources, the trade ready to buy it and one or two old-time sleepers.

THE Law Fine Art sale at Southington House, a country house near Overton, Hampshire, had everything you might expect to find in a home lived in by one family for over a century.

A RECORD turnout on July 13 gave the Hampshire auctioneers Jacobs & Hunt reason to hope that the market is finally beginning to perk up although it was more specialist items, rather than general furniture, which were of most interest.

UK: Phillips have announced the closure of two more of their provincial salerooms, Guildford and Ringwood, as part of their ongoing and extensive restructuring programme.

AS THE Tour de France came to an end, this 1870 Eugène Meyer de Paris Vélocipède sold on its top estimate for £26,000 (plus 15 per cent buyer’s premium) at Brooks’ Summer Vintage sale at the National Motor Museum in Beaulieu on July 27.

UK: POOR old Neville Chamberlain. He always takes the blame for all but delivering up the British people to Adolf Hitler, when perhaps he should really be seen merely as one of those Edwardian throwbacks like Eden who believed, quite rightly, that there was no aspect of a fascist dictatorship which could threaten the lifestyle of the English upper classes.

UK: Come Burns Night on January 25, someone will be paying homage to the Scottish poet with more than haggis and a dram.

UK: A GEORGE III shell-inlaid oval knife box and a 19th century oak and 7ft 6in (2.29m) high mahogany crossbanded longcase clock with a painted face signed Rogers, Dudley, each attracted a trade bid of £1600 to jointly lead this monthly catalogued sale of 504 lots in Hampshire.