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David Lay, Penzance. January 20 & 21. Buyer’s premium: 15 per cent THERE were rather fewer lots than usual at Cornwall but the 720 on offer were true to tradition; a high take up (around 90 per cent), plenty of two- and three-figure bids on collectables and ceramics, standard furniture creeping into four figures, and one lot taking off.

Valued at £1500-2000, a signed first issue of William Blacker’s The Art of Angling..., printed in 1842 in Edinburgh by Anderson & Bryce and containing 31 trout flies and a single salmon fly attached with decorative coloured paper seals (see illustration top right) but lacking the single plate, was bid to £22,000 (Head).

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.

Pot Lids and Stevengraphs were two areas of the market put to the test last month.

LAST week I reported how Kensington porcelain specialist Simon Spero was moving following the termination of his lease.

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.

THE fortifying glass of fruit punch offered by the Wadebridge auctioneers Lambrays (15% buyer’s premium) to buyers before the start of their traditional Cornish New Year’s Eve sale may not have fuelled much interest in the mid- to low-range quality furniture – around two-thirds of which failed to sell – but it whetted one private buyer’s appetite for the large shaped stained glass window, right.