Clocks, Watches & Jewellery

If a Chanel snow globe, a Fabergé bracelet or a blue table by Yves Klein are on the list for Father Christmas this year then head to Christie’s Paris showroom this weekend.

A 3000-year old torc found in a field in east Cambridgeshire is one of the largest and heaviest to be unearthed in the UK.

A rare early model of the ‘mystery clock’ invented by magician and horologist Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin (1805-1871) is up for sale at Chiswick Auctions next month.

Phillips set a record price for a wristwatch sold at auction over the weekend when a Patek Philippe Reference 1518 was knocked down for SFr9.6m (£7.7m).

A Rolex watch that was bought in 1966 for £69.10 has sold at auction for £140,000. The rare Rolex Oyster Perpetual Submariner stainless steel model is highly desired by collectors due to its 3-6-9 Explorer dial.

This late medieval marriage ring, unearthed by a metal detectorist last year in North Yorkshire, has been sold to London dealers Wartski for a five-figure sum after a private deal was negotiated by independent valuer Mark Littler.

Two Russian diamond necklaces, with links to Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, will be auctioned by Sotheby’s in Geneva next month with a $10m estimate.

A remarkable Australian gold rush era bracelet was sold by Chorley’s of Prinknash Abbey Park earlier this month for £57,000. The buyer was an Australian private collector.

Buyers at a recent Fellows auction in Birmingham showed the strength in the market for amber.

A historic jewellers in Bolton is in the process of closing after reporting that the decline of the high street and the rise of the internet made trading impossible for them.

Opposition to the ‘outsourcing’ of UK hallmarks overseas is gathering momentum in the trade. Campaigners say the use of British hallmarks in India threatens a 700-year-old system for stamping precious metals.

London Bridge is falling down, goes the song. A bit further upstream, it turns out that the Houses of Parliament are actually doing the falling down.

A temporary export bar has been placed on the coronet designed for Queen Victoria by her husband Prince Albert, giving UK buyers an opportunity to raise the £5m (plus £1m VAT) asking price to keep it in the country.

The imminent arrival of Crossrail services in London are threatening the character of the Hatton Garden jewellery quarter.

New London books and works on paper specialists Forum Auctions plan to hold their first jewellery and watches sale in November following the appointment of Andrea de Miglio as the head of a new department.

A skull and crossbones ring or a skeleton on a chain are now likely to be seen hanging from a Goth looking like they have just stepped out of a Tim Burton film or heading for the biannual Whitby music fest.

Sotheby’s established an auction record for a watch by John Arnold (1736-99) when a large silver pocket chronometer of 1781 sold at £460,000.

The 28th edition of the Paris ‘Biennale des Antiquaires’ will include a radical shake-up of its jewellery content.

Jewellery specialists Symbolic & Chase have doubled the size of their premises with a move into an additional floor of their building in Mayfair.

A classic Chinese-made European style automaton clock or ‘Sing Song’ sold for $1.27m (£907,140) at Fontaine’s in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.