News

Irish bid beats London trade to £11,500 bureau plat UK: PHILLIPS’ Northern torch carrier nets consignments from an extensive area – everywhere east of the Pennines from the Scottish Border to South Lincolnshire – but, even so, the fine furniture sales that used to be held six times a year are now quarterly events with fairly slim 200-250-lot catalogues.

UK: THIS 63/4in (17cm) high striking table clock proved to be the most expensive lot in a sale of clocks and watches held by Christie’s South Kensington 17.5/10 per cent buyer’s premium) on December 14.

UK: SPECIALIST auctioneers Tool Shop Auctions (10 per cent buyer’s premium) finished the year with an 1100-lot dispersal on December 4 at Needham Market Suffolk, where a UK bidder beat an American rival to the top seller, this extremely rare boxwood Ultimatum brace, right, by William Marples.

USA: FLORIDA-based organiser David Lester launches a new quality fair in the state when an international roster of dealers show at the first Palm Beach Town & Country Art and Antique Exposition from March 8 to 13.

UK: THE last of the monthly sales of collectors’ items and antiques of the year at Cirencester was dominated in visual terms by a pair of Cotswold stone columns, 7ft 6in (2.25m) high, which had been rescued by the vendor from a cowshed where they had lain for 60 years. They achieved a new-found status when they sold at £1200.

UK: LOCAL bidders accounted for most of the Oriental and European ceramics and works of art offered at Edinburgh where 306 lots totalled £75,000 but the top seller went to an English bidder.

HOPES of clarifying ownership rights over items sold at auction on the Internet have suffered a setback with the settling out of court of a potentially precedent-setting case.