West Midlands

THIEVES escaped with £10,000 worth of furniture and antiques in a raid on a dealer in Staffordshire.

ENTERPRISING Essex organiser Robert Bailey seldom seems to stop moving round the country and this holiday weekend sees him in the heart of the Potteries.

After over 50 years as arms and armour auctioneers in the centre of Birmingham – and an association with the city of close to one and half centuries – Weller & Dufty are to close.

Remarkable things continue to happen in the Beswick market. Consider the fortunes of a handful of scarce, but damaged, models seen recently at the Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent rooms of Louis Taylor (12.5% buyer’s premium).

Brightwells, Leominster, January 12-13 Buyer’s premium: 15 per cent Illuminating this 900-lot Hereford-shire sale was the English brass candlestick featured on the front page of ATG No.1675, February 5, which was taken to £4600 in the confident belief it was a period 16th century example.

THE engaging subject and large size of this 16 x 13in (41 x 33cm) Berlin-style porcelain plaque, right, helped it to the top slot at the January 18 sale held by Philip Laney (15% buyer’s premium) at the Malvern Auction Centre.

A group of 19th century sepia drawings, depicting Aborigines in Queensland, came up for auction at Brightwells (15% buyer’s premium) sale of paintings and prints on January 26 in Leominster, Herefordshire.

LAST year Fran Foster launched her new event, the National Fine Art & Antiques Fair, at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre and, from January 19 to 23, it returns to the Forum, which is arguably the most popular of the NEC’s many halls for antiques fixtures.

Halls (15% buyer’s premium) "It was quite a rare object, in good working order and sang beautifully.”

Richard Winterton (15% buyer’s premium)Trained by Tom Coulthwaite, who schooled a number of high-class jumpers in the first decades of the 20th century, Irish-bred Eremon was one of the top chasers of his era. And 1907 was very much his year.

Pick up a copy of a Beswick price guide from the late 1990s and it will tell you that the Galloway Bull, designed by Arthur Gredington, was made in three versions.

A novelty locomotive sweet container for Chlorodyne Lozenges (probably some form of cough drop) proved a star attraction at Richard Winterton’s December 1 collectors’ auction in Burton on Trent last week.

A HANDFUL of factors make this Coxon Aerial fishing reel among the best of its type.

WEST Midlands Police have arrested three people from Birmingham in connection with the theft of Staffordshire figures from the Antiques for Everyone fair after the items were spotted on eBay.

THE well advertised sale of Railwayana & Military Memorabilia was held in H.J Pugh & Co’s Ledbury salerooms on the 13th October and was another successful auction.

H.J. PUGH & Co. of Ledbury (5% buyer's premium) will be offering a selection of Railwayana, Military Memorabilia and Other Collectables at auction on Saturday 13th November.

AN October 21 sale of historical documents and letters to be held in Ludlow by Mullock Madeley includes a vellum document of 1227, witnessed by Hugh de Burgh, in which Henry III grants the right in perpetuity to hold an annual fair to the Prior and Canons of St Mary Magdelene of Combwell (on the Kent/Sussex borders).

DISPERSING 200 mixed-quality clocks may seem a daunting prospect for some provincial auctioneers, but, by selling the Staffordshire collection in bite-size chunks through their general, oak and country and fine auctions, Richard Winterton (15% buyer's premium) managed to get away almost all entries during the summer months.

Given the Potteries location, it is hardly surprising that Royal Doulton and Beswick have long provided Louis Taylor (12.5% buyer's premium) with their bread-and-butter business as well as many top lots. The first day of their quarterly fine sales is always devoted to these staples, predominantly sourced from private vendors living within a 50-mile radius of the Hanley rooms.

NOW under new ownership, Petersfield auctioneers Jacobs & Hunt have announced a new monthly general sale.