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PRESENTER and interviewer Jeremy Paxman, pictured right, has agreed to be the patron of this year’s Antiquarian Book Fair, which will be held at Olympia in West London from June 9 to 12.

The market for Clarice Cliff may not be the spirited beast it was five or six years ago when Christie’s South Kensington’s specialist sales could routinely expect to boast 80-90 per cent selling rates by lot.

Publicity worked well in the Lyon & Turnbull sale for Golf in the Year 2000, or What are We Coming To..., a work of 1892 by J.A.C.K.

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.