Worcestershire

B2B Events is truly back on the road, said director Helen Yourston after the turnout at the first Malvern Flea since lockdown at the Three Counties Showground on Monday, August 31.

Around the year 1904, during the Second Period of Belleek production in Fermanagh, Ulster, designer William Harris designed the Five O’Clock pattern.

Stephanie Castell, owner of The Secondhand Warehouse in the Herefordshire town of Leominster, resorted to an extreme measure to make social distancing easier when the centre reopened: she took a wall out.

Held over three pre-lockdown days on March 5-7, Evesham saleroom Kingham & Orme’s (23% buyer’s premium) auction was rich in the best of English and European decorative arts.

There was no shortage of desirable names among the 1370-lot Fine & Decorative three-day sale at Kingham & Orme (23% buyer’s premium), such as Charles Ashbee, Omar Ramsden, Lalique, Christopher Dresser and William de Morgan.

Despite or perhaps because of their macabre nature, antique medical instruments have a strong following, both among practitioners and general buyers.

Dealers have their favoured pitches at B2B’s Malvern Flea & Collectors Fair, as ATG discovers

The sale at Kingham & Orme (20% buyer’s premium) in Evesham on December 6-7 included the second instalment of the remarkable Shennan collection of silver mustard pots, this time featuring examples made in the reigns of George IV to Victoria (1821-1901).

This small Gothic Revival beaker was made by ecclesiastical metal manufacturer John Hardman (Birmingham, 1848) at the height of the first partnership with AWN Pugin.

International interest at the Kingham & Orme (20% buyer’s premium) sale at Evesham on December 6-7 focused on René Lalique. A single-owner collection of the great French designer’s work attracted multiple phone and internet bidders from the US, the Continent and Russia.

Although the catalogue noted the rarity of a Queen Anne silver tazza and tankard having been together for more than 300 years, they were offered separately at Lawrences (25% buyer’s premium) of Crewkerne.

In the resilient Beswick market, collectors paid high prices for some rarities – even modern prototypes – at autumn sales.

The great appeal of an otherwise typical early 19th century longcase offered for sale on September 12 by Malvern auctioneer Philip Serrell was its painted dial.

Malvern event organisers have fully booked halls and hope for more exhibitors outside.

The John Goodwin (15% buyer’s premium) saleroom in Malvern offered what it dubbed “probably the most notorious bat in cricket history” in its June 20 auction: the infamous aluminium bat used by Dennis Lillee in the 1979-80 Ashes.

The resurrection of vinyl continues apace as was evident when a large collection of classical records offered by Ledbury auction house John Goodwin (15% buyer’s premium) attracted specialist trade and private interest from all over the world.

The recent sale of a single-owner collection of Moorcroft pottery by Kingham & Orme in Evesham demonstrated two distinct faces of the Staffordshire factory.

No good library of British art pottery literature is complete without a copy of Paul Atterbury’s 'Moorcroft'. The jacket illustration alone with its myriad tube-lined miniatures in a bewildering range of forms and patterns is particularly memorable. More than one collector has attempted to emulate the beguiling display.