News

BACK IN the mid-1990s, when Far Eastern buyers were sending prices through the roof and people were (supposedly) stocking up for their Millennium parties, fine wine was one of the most excitingly volatile of all auction markets.

US: JUST as it was with the Morris bird books featured in last week’s Antiquarian Books pages (see issue no. 1481), we are looking here at a very familiar set of books in an unfamiliar context.

UK: BOXLOCK shotguns are the most common of British fowling firearms and those with bolt-actions are certainly not unusual, but this particular model, left, aroused great interest at Weller and Dufty’s (15 per cent premium) arms and armour auction in Birmingham on March 14.

UK: THE current strength of the silver market for unusual pieces has been discussed in theAntiques Trade Gazette of recent weeks and the Cambridge auctioneers two-day sale showed that the trend is no different in East Anglia.

UK: PEOPLE are rightly reluctant to travel to foot-and-mouth infected countryside, and although the local area was free from the disease, the February sale at Devon-based S.J. Hales was attended by just 25 bidders in the room.

UK: THE Cotswolds seems the natural environment for oak dressers and a couple were on offer here.

In a beautifully preserved contemporary, and possibly Austrian binding of blind-stamped calf with brass fittings, this copy of Erhard Ratdolt’s 1482, first printing of Euclid’s Elementa, shows some slight waterstaining to the lower margins, but it remains one of the largest and freshest copies in existence – taller than even the Doheny, Honeyman-Garden and Haskell F. Norman copies.