Crewkerne

One notable consequence of the growing prevalence of charity shops on the high street is that auctioneers are receiving more and more items that these organisations want to check in case they are valuable.

Under forthcoming UK ivory legislation, there will be no legitimate market for bronze and ivory Art Deco figures.

Two musical boxes catching the eye and ear among the small vertu sections at summer silver sales.

At an uncertain time bidders are assertive when the best and not the rest comes up at auction.

Lawrences of Crewkerne’s militaria auction on May 16 will include an important set of awards and medals to Vice Admiral Sir HT Walwyn.

A ‘turn-up’ religious text was one of the earlier, rarer and more expensive items in a Somerset sale.

Jeff Day was born in Weston-super-Mare in 1952 and grew up in Somerset.

Offered to a packed and enthusiastic saleroom, the 750-lot silver sale at Lawrences (22% buyer’s premium) of Crewkerne was divided into three parts: an extraordinary reference library, a broad sweep of the market for British and Continental white metal and a niche single-owner collection. It brought two-and-three-quarter cheers.

This Aesthetic movement X-frame armchair took £11,000 against an estimate of just £100-150 at Lawrences of Crewkerne.

Believed to have been in the same family since new, a rare 19th century Jules Steiner doll and her trunk of clothes demolished the estimate at a wide-ranging sale at Lawrences (22% buyer’s premium) at Crewkerne on November 16.

Included in the sale at Lawrences (22% buyer’s premium) of Crewkerne on October 11 was a brick from the Great Wall of China. It probably dated from the Ming period when Great Wall sections were widely built with fired clay bricks, adhered with lime mortar and sticky rice.

Among the most desirable of all Royal Doulton Lambeth productions are those depicting scenes of flora and fauna from Australasia.

Heading the 800 lots of silver which opened the three-day sale at Lawrences (22% buyer’s premium) in Crewkerne was a 11¼in (28.5cm) tall flagon by Thomas Walker, Dublin, c.1750-60.

Rare appearance for quirky artist results in keen competition for work in trademark frame.

Demand for Scottish artist with a ‘distinctive personality’ drives a good auction result in Somerset.

Considering that Norwich was, after London, the largest and wealthiest city in England from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution, its assay office (1562-1705) was comparatively shortlived. As such, secular silver produced in the city rarely appears on the market.

This Tudor period gold finger ring with the initials RB was found by a detectorist on land to the west of Crewkerne in 2017.

As regimental silver, the Victorian centrepiece shown below qualified to be part of the Militaria, Coins & Medals sale at Lawrences (22% buyer’s premium) of Crewkerne and, as a memento of the gallant 9th (The Queen’s Royal) Lancers, it swept the field.

Dog pictures with charisma, personality and plenty of naturalism are a driving force in the secondary market for canine art, judging by a recent string of buoyant prices in the regions.