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THE country’s most famous antiques dealer David Dickinson, now a television superstar, did not work his magic on George Taylor, organiser of the Great Northern International Antiques and Collectors’ Fair at Harrogate’s Great Yorkshire Showground.

MAYFAIR’S only specialist in tribal art, the Gordon Reece Gallery, hold an exhibition Gabbehs: an idiosyncratic art form from February 21 to March 29.

The first furniture sale of the year at Sotheby’s Olympia (20/12% buyer’s premium) was a 272-lot gathering on January 14 which saw two-thirds of the contents change hands.

To date this year Bonhams (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) have held five sales of furniture and carpets. These weekly sales are making a return to their Knightsbridge rooms for the first time in around 20 years after a recent peripatetic period of moving from Chelsea – their long time abode – to Bayswater and briefly back to Chelsea again.

The Bank of England Museum was the host and Spink were the auctioneers on Friday, January 24 at one of the most unusual sales seen in London. It was a sale of special number Bank of England notes sold to bolster the funds of the Commonwealth Education Fund.

BESWICK is one of the strongest areas of the 20th century collectable ceramics market so it was not surprising to see trade and private collectors packing these Leicestershire rooms at Gildings to bid on a large single-owner collection from a local deceased estate. What was surprising were the lengths to which bidders would go.

The Spring Fine Art & Antiques Fair at Olympia, which will be held in London from February 25 to March 2, has received a record amount of publicity thanks to this Graham Sutherland (1903-1980) portrait of Churchill, right.