Art and antiques news from 2005

THE case against an auctioneer accused of trading in stolen goods as part of a £30m antiques crime ring has collapsed.

A poster for the film Metropolis, considered by many to be the holy grail of science fiction posters, has been sold by London dealers The Reel Poster Gallery to a Californian private collector for $690,000 (£390,000).

Plans to rejuvenate firm include big stand at Olympia

UNCERTAINTY surrounds the future of the Antiques For Everyone – Glasgow fairs which have been staged for the past six years at the Scottish Exhibition & Conference Centre, Glasgow.

EC&O agree ten-year lease as they drop MGM partnership

IT has stood for just over a century as a tribute to one of the leading figures in English Victorian art. But now the fabric of the Watts Gallery building, which houses a unique 200-piece collection, has deteriorated so much that £10m is needed to repair it and secure its future.

The niche market appears to be the driving force in silver sales today.

INTERNATIONAL exhibition and publishing company dmg world media have acquired Chicago-based Expressions of Culture Inc., producers of SOFA Chicago and SOFA New York.

AN innovative device for securing paintings has won wide recognition at a prestigious European scientific and engineering event.

Christie’s return higher total for a single sale, but Sotheby’s secure top price of series

The second tranche of a private collection of nutmeg graters was offered at Woolley & Wallis’ October 19 sale.

The stock-in-trade and private collection of Maurice Turpin who died in March, will be sold by Christie’s in London next spring. Two sales, on March 9 and 14, will offer over 800 items and are estimated to fetch over £2m.

The final 51 lots of Woolley & Wallis’s sale on October 19 comprised the Fauconberg & Conyers Heirlooms.

“Someday,” wrote The Times in August 1912, “collectors will ransack the town for Martin’s artistic stonewares.”

ATG have received these new pictures of two men thought to be targeting antique shops and centres in the Thames Valley area.

POLICE are appealing for information following the theft of four stuffed heads of wild animals that were stolen from a Leicestershire house.

Yorkshire auctioneers and valuers DDM have joined a growing list of regional firms who have gone into receivership.

COIN dealers Noble Investments have announced the acquisition of Baldwin’s, the London-based coin dealers and auctioneers, in a reverse take-over.

Second year student Claire Playle and third year student Sharon Hall were the recipients of the Christopher Weston/SOFAA bursaries at the AGM of the Society of Fine Art Auctioneers and Valuers at Wilton House, near Salisbury on October 31.

The cosy Dorset town of Sherborne is not usually associated with bloody revolution and armed struggle, but Sherborne-based Charterhouse Auctioneers have unearthed two items redolent with memories of the American Revolution.