West Midlands

THREE well-known and energetic dealerships whose trade is mainly with the trade have combined to form a major new outlet in the Midlands.

“A fine and rare Märklin gauge III spirit fired live steam locomotive with tender and two hand-painted coaches... presented to the Tsar Nicholas II on the occasion of the Russian royal family’s state visit to Paris in 1905...complete with unpublished photograph of the Tsar and Tsarevich in the hotel”.

Novelty pieces and collector’s items like this Art Nouveau enamelled silver double-photograph locket, right, were the pieces mainly in demand at the silver and jewellery sale held by Fellows (15% buyer’s premium) at Birmingham on September 5.

The bane of the shop trade and the boon of auctioneers – the Internet has certainly transformed the marketplace and nowhere is this more true than toy sales.

THE Internet may well be gathering momentum as an effective marketing and selling tool for Herefordshire auctioneers Brightwells who now illustrate about a quarter of the catalogue entries on their website launched in February.

Quality paintings have been extremely thin on the ground in the provinces in the last few weeks, but this Dorothea Sharp (1874-1955) oil did at least create a stir at the Leominster rooms of Brightwells (15% buyer’s premium) on August 29 when it climbed to £41,000 against an estimate of £3000-5000.

MANY auctioneers decide against holding sales in August, traditionally the quietest month of the auction calender. These Staffordshire auctioneers, Richard Winterton chose to go ahead with their monthly sales which, as so often throughout the year, was led by brown furniture.

NEARLY 40 years after 15 men stole 120 mail bags containing £2.6m from the Royal Mail train as it passed through the Buckinghamshire countryside, the Great Train Robbery can still arouse controversy. In 1969 the police held an auction of items found in the robbers’ hideout on behalf of the banks who lost money.

TIME stood still at WTM Snape’s Tea and Coffee Merchants of Queen Street, Wolverhampton. For well over a century it has been one of the best preserved old shops left in Britain – apart from the installation of electric light, and a Hobart electric coffee grinder in the 1970s, nothing much has changed in the emporium, founded in the early 19th Century.

When David Brettell was made redundant from Barbers of Market Drayton he decided to go it alone and in October 2001 Brettells was born. Holding weekly general and bi-monthly fine sales, the fledgling auction house has found success in what have been difficult times for the trade.

Horseless carriages have long been the preserve of Thimbleby and Shoreland at Reading but the private collection of farm implements built up by Herefordshire corn merchant and farmer Hector Morris saw Leominster auctioneers Brightwells (15% buyer’s premium inc. vat) put a number of carriages on the market on July 20.

ALTHOUGH since its inception 16 years ago the August Antiques For Everyone fair at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre has been overtaken in terms of business by its spring and autumn counterparts, this summer’s staging from August 8 to 11 proved the most lively NEC fair for some time.

PROOF that the specialist collector knows no close season was offered in June by Weller & Dufty (15% buyer’s premium), at Birmingham and Wallis & Wallis (15% buyer’s premium), Lewes, who held sales devoted to arms and armour and militaria on consecutive days.

Specialist items, including a collection of five nut crackers and novelty silver entries, encouraged buyers to travel to Herefordshire to bid in this 1080-lot sale at Brightwells on 11 June, which was 70 per cent sold by lot.

AN example of every Hornby Dublo model from 1948 until the Liverpool factory went out of business in 1964 will come for up auction as a single collection at Barry Potter Auctions in Rugby on July 18.

JUST as the Office of Fair Trading seemed to be making progress over the misleading marketing tactics of the Barcelona-based European City Guide, another similar operation has struck again.

FELLOWS and Sons, the Birmingham auctioneers, have refunded the buyers of three watercolours sold as the work of Prince Charles last week after the pictures were revealed as forgeries.

BIRMINGHAM-based Centre Exhibitions, headed by Fran Foster, launch a new series of fairs from October 18-20 when the first Ceramics For Everyone Fair is held at The Grandstand, Worcester Racecourse.

William Blake did not manage to persuade his non-conformist followers to build Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land, but a Victorian carpenter came close with this davenport, right. Consigned to the May 22-23 sale held at Winterton’s (10% buyer’s premium) in Lichfield, the davenport belongs to an interesting group of 19th century olivewood furniture bearing the logo Jerusalem, written in English or Hebrew.

THIS rugby and football memorabilia sale of just over 500 lots was not one of the specialist sporting auctioneer’s most spectacular outings, dominated as it was by paper ephemera rather than expensive medals and silverware, but the turn-out and take-up were as strong as ever.