News

US: THE FIRST sale of 2001 at the San Francisco rooms of Pacific Book Auction Galleries – who recently announced that they had acquired significant additional private funding with the aim of extending their marketing and professional services – took place on January 18 and offered one man’s angling library.

Lowly-rated architect’s table sells at £24,000 UK: OCCASIONALLY a dream sale comes along for the auctioneer that needs no selling and takes off for no apparent reason. It happened at Nottingham where Neales’ specialist Bruce Fearne enjoyed taking some startling bids from privates and trade alike, for no obvious reason.

ICOLLECTOR seem to be on a roll with their new eBay deal. After a good start, they have put in another creditable performance, this time at the recent Dargate Galleries sale of general antiques and collectables, reported in detail below.

Pictured here is the title page of one of the more important publications in the history of science – Carolus Linnaeus’ Systema naturae... of 1735, which laid the groundwork for the systematic classification of plants and animals.

The principal focus of the Christie’s Los Angeles sale of February 22 was a collection of Pacific voyages, with particular emphasis on New Zealand, and I shall return to that sale next week (see issue no. 1483) – but there were a few other things as well.

US: HIGHLIGHT of Asia week in New York was this 2ft 1in (63cm) high bronze ritual wine vessel of the late Shang/early Western Zhou period offered at Christie’s on March 20, where it became the most expensive oriental work of art ever sold at auction.

UK: THE net surrounding the UK’s illicit art and antiquities trade has tightened with the Government signing up to an international convention to return stolen artefacts to their rightful owners.