Peter Francis

The building frenzy that followed the British arrival in Hong Kong in 1841 brought added fire risk. Any long spell of dry, windy weather could – and periodically did – prove disastrous.

‘Significant damage and rust’ was spot on as a catalogue description when it came to an enamel sign sold at Cotswold Auction Company (22% buyer’s premium) on February 8. It was a mess.

Three modestly valued works selling at regional sales including a Daniel Sherrin landscape.

Although auction house premises in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland can (under restrictions) be open to the public, the official green light is yet to be received in Wales.

Rescued from a skip, a rusting British enamel advertising sign sold for £10,400 (plus 24% buyer’s premium) at auction in Carmarthen.

Estimated at just £40-60, this ebonised wood and alabaster table casket sold to a bidder using thesaleroom.com for £1600 at Peter Francis (20% buyer’s premium) of Carmarthen on August 28.

Anglicised, Anglican and Tory landowners controlled many aspects of Welsh life in the Georgian period – particularly when it came to politics.

This pair of plates, one of them extensively damaged and riveted, proved much more popular than predicted in a sale held in Carmarthen by Peter Francis (20% buyer’s premium) last month.

Precisely four months on from a flood inundating its saleroom, Carmarthen auction house Peter Francis (20% buyer’s premium) enjoyed a literal and metaphorical day in the sunshine on February 13.

In the long history of beer, the can is a relative newcomer. The first canned beer came with the end of Prohibition in the US – the shiny new light-weight packaging used by Krueger’s in Richmond, Virgina, to market a pasteurised beverage from January 1935.

A famous royal regiment was remembered at the Peter Francis (20% buyer’s premium) auction in Carmarthen.

This small 7 x 91/2in (18 x 24cm) oil on panel Biblical scene by the Victorian artist William Edward Frost (1810-77), below, doubled its top guide at Peter Francis (20% buyer’s premium) of Carmarthen on July 11.