News

DETAILS of the planned development of Sotheby’s UK salerooms announced in last week’s Antiques Trade Gazette are unlikely to become clear before mid-December at the earliest.

UK: The absence of a buyer’s premium at Nigel Ward & Co’s sale on November 18 at Ewyas Harold Memorial Hall near Pontrilas, Hereford was certainly a factor in the substantial price attained for this Charles II pewter candlestick, 7in (18cm) by an unknown Bristol maker.

As chairman of a discussion panel at the annual conference of the Appraisers Association of America in New York, MARK BRIDGE, found that the Internet is not the villain it was painted a year ago. He reports on the current attitudes to on-line valuation in the USA and the views of auctioneers experimenting with online bidding.

This Regency giltwood chair may have been one of the largest hearing aids ever built, but it was intended to serve the same purpose as the smallest, mobile device: disguising the disablity and sparing the dignity of the listener.

“Is the live auction dead?” was the challenging question before a panel discussion at the annual conference of the Appraisers Association of America in New York in which four major regional auction houses took part.

DEALERS in the Dover area have contacted the Antiques Trade Gazette to complain about a local police initiative asking them to fingerprint their customers.

FRANCE: A French judge ruled on November 20 that Yahoo must take steps to prevent French Web-browsers from accessing sales of Nazi memorabilia on their American auction site.