Art and antiques news from 1999

US: A NEW record for a United States coin has been achieved at auction in New York with the sale of a silver dollar for a premium-inclusive $4.14m (£2.63m) on August 30.

UK: IN the annals of blood sport history, one man stands above all the other hunters, shooters and fishers on his individual pile of trophies.

UK: A PRIME piece of Gothic revival furniture, this early Victorian oak metamorphic library armchair, possibly to a design by John Loudon, made £5600 (plus 10 per cent buyer’s premium) from the Irish trade at the Salisbury salerooms of Woolley and Wallis on August 24.

UK: DURING the industrial revolution, speed of production in the workplace was matched only by the consumption of beverage in the public house, and so far as the thirsty labourers were concerned one of the greatest mechanical inventions of the late 19th century was the so-called 'bar-screw'.

UK: THE rumour that the senior executives who have quit Phillips Edinburgh are to set up a rival auctioneers under the Lyon & Turnbull banner has been confirmed.

UK: CONSIGNED to the Taunton rooms of Lawrence’s from a local source was this German tinplate money bank depicting Mickey Mouse with a concertina.

UK: DMG Antiques Fairs has moved into the London market with the acquisition of two well-known North London events, the Wembley and Lee Valley fairs.

UK: FOLLOWING the sudden departure of two senior men, Graham Child and Joseph Friedman, from Sotheby’s furniture department in London, the auction house has appointed Simon Redburn as worldwide senior specialist of its English furniture department.

FIRST half results for Sotheby’s parent company, Sotheby’s Holdings Inc, show a decline on last year although auction sales results have enjoyed a healthy increase.

UK: TOP price of Christie’s South Kensington (15/10 per cent buyer’s premium) sale of toys and dolls on July 29, 1999 was the £1200 which secured this painted wood Noah’s Ark, complete with numerous carved and painted wood animals, which had been estimated at £600-800.

UK: LURKING in the depths of a maritime sale at Henry Aldridge & Son (10 per cent buyer’s premium) in Devizes, Wiltshire, on July 21, was this badge, the most expensive Edwardian badge ever sold at auction.

UK: Rival venture rumoured Five senior staff at Phillips Edinburgh, including the manager Nick Curnow, have resigned and left the company to pursue new interests.

UK: POP star John Lennon adopted a number of different guises throughout his career in the public eye – likely lad, mystic, cartoonist, photographer, songwriter – and likewise it now appears as though he was just as much of a chameleon in his sartorial life.

GERMANY: ARTLINK have conducted what is being claimed as the first live online art auction. The sale – of International Young Baltic Art – took place on the evening of Saturday, August 7 at Rostock in Germany.

UK: THE chief beneficiary of Lloyds’ July 31 sale of London Underground railwayana in Putney was a pet pig called Charlotte, whose owner, John Shirley, paid the auction’s top hammer price of £1000 for the front end of a Type 59 Northern Line train, intending to house his animal in it.

UK: PHILLIPS Cardiff are among the three rooms which will soon close, but they held a good sale on August 4 where this pair of English 17th century brass candlesticks, 61/2in (17cm) high were consigned to the rooms from a private source.

US: TIFFANY stained glass authority Alistair Duncan was convicted on Thursday by a New York federal jury on all five counts of trafficking in Tiffany windows stolen from cemetaries and mausoleums.

UK: PHILLIPS are continuing the restructuring of their regional sales business with the closure of three more auction rooms: Glasgow, Cardiff and Retford will all shut by the end of September and be replaced by offices for dealing with clients.

GERMANY: INTERNET art auctioneer Artnet.com which floated on the Frankfurt exchange in May, have denied a claim by magazine Boerse Online that their main shareholders are selling their shares.