Devon

UK: TEA caddies and Tunbridgeware are both hot sellers at present and the combination in the form of this pretty piece, right, was irresistible to half a dozen bidders at the two-day sale held by Rendells (10 per cent buyer’s premium) at Ashburton on May 24 and 25.

UK: ALTHOUGH there were no huge prices among the 416 lots at these Devon rooms, there was success across the wide range of offerings.

Devon auctioneers’ Rendells mammoth 2000-lot sale saw keen interest and strong prices for a selection of horological pieces.

UK: AS with spoons, silver takes on an extra glow in the currently buoyant market for tea caddies an example of which came up at the April 26/27 sale at Taunton held by Greenslade Taylor Hunt’s (15% buyer’s premium).

UK: Gathering new business from buyers unable to attend salerooms in Devon and Wales, these Wotton Gloucestershire rooms were one of a small handful to benefit from the foot and mouth plague.

UK: PEOPLE are rightly reluctant to travel to foot-and-mouth infected countryside, and although the local area was free from the disease, the February sale at Devon-based S.J. Hales was attended by just 25 bidders in the room.

UK: THE downward spiral of the euro against sterling since the single currency was launched has been a problem for auctioneers, particularly in the South, who could once count on French, Italian and Spanish dealers keeping the lower and middle ranges of the market buoyant, so there was naturally some satisfaction for these Devon auctioneers to see a little of the old peseta power in February.

UK: COINCIDING with the recent recovery of Donald Campbell’s boat from Coniston Water, photographs and ephemera relating to Campbell’s famous father Sir Malcolm attracted extra interest at this Devon sale.

UK: This mid-18th century Whieldon type pottery arbour group of two seated crinolined ladies provided the highest price in a sale at Potbury’s Temple Street rooms in Sidmouth on February 20 when it sold for £15,000 (plus 10 per cent premium).

Lambeth tugs and Staffordshire jug bring in bidders UK: THE Devon branch of Bonhams & Brooks were undoubtedly pleased to have disposed of their ‘Fine Furniture, Clocks and Objects’ before the floods, but in fact the weather did not seem to affect turnout for what looked more like an end-of-year clearance in December.

UK: THE most prominent entry to this monthly two-day sale in Devon was an early 19th century linen press had come from a South Coast farmhouse.

UK: DEVON dealers J. Collins & Son are well known for their stock of functional period furniture, but looking through their new catalogue of recent acquisitions most would be hard pressed to spot the exact function of the extraordinary piece pictured here.

UK: A heart-shaped London delft pill slab of c.1660-70, 12 x 10in (30 x 25cm), painted in blue, ochre and turquoise with the arms of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries.

UK: DURING the industrial revolution, speed of production in the workplace was matched only by the consumption of beverage in the public house, and so far as the thirsty labourers were concerned one of the greatest mechanical inventions of the late 19th century was the so-called 'bar-screw'.

UK: CONSIGNED to the Taunton rooms of Lawrence’s from a local source was this German tinplate money bank depicting Mickey Mouse with a concertina.

UK: IS this Gothic revival red walnut foldover card table, left, another rediscovered work by the great William Burges?

UK: TOP LOT in this sale was a 1668 edition of Gervase Markham’s A Way to get Wealth, a ‘nonce’ collection, first issued in 1623, which incorporates half a dozen works by this important but prolific and commercially inventive writer on agriculture, who was not averse to putting different titles to what were essentially the same works or to re-issuing unsold copies of new books under new titles.