Auctioneers

UK: TWO days of selling in the niche sporting memorabilia market resulted in something of a score draw for specialists Mullock Madeley.

Irish bid beats London trade to £11,500 bureau plat UK: PHILLIPS’ Northern torch carrier nets consignments from an extensive area – everywhere east of the Pennines from the Scottish Border to South Lincolnshire – but, even so, the fine furniture sales that used to be held six times a year are now quarterly events with fairly slim 200-250-lot catalogues.

UK: THIS 63/4in (17cm) high striking table clock proved to be the most expensive lot in a sale of clocks and watches held by Christie’s South Kensington 17.5/10 per cent buyer’s premium) on December 14.

Sotheby’s Holdings have confirmed that eight per cent of their staff worldwide – around 165 employees – are to lose their jobs as part of a cost-cutting and restructuring programme.

UK: BONHAMS and Brooks are to close their Manchester saleroom, compress departments in London and make 15 staff redundant in the first major shake-up since the two companies merged in September.

UK: IF you stood fuming on the cocktail party sidelines over the festive season as your wife/husband got on famously with a lecherous member of the opposite sex, then something like this oversized (18in) metal syringe and vial which appeared at Christie's South Kensington on December 12, would have come in rather useful.

USA: A 137-lot collection of marine archaeological artefacts salvaged by the company Arqueonautas from seven wrecks on the reefs of the Cape Verde Islands rounded off Sotheby’s horological and scientific auction on December 19.

PHILLIPS have announced that they are to merge with private treaty sale firm de Pury & Luxembourg, with Simon de Pury becoming chairman of the group and Daniella Luxembourg president.

UK: IN THE days when thousands of game birds would be shot in a morning on the moors by the likes of Walsingham and Ripon, it might have come as a shock to learn that no records of this gun ever making a successful kill existed, even more so when the target was many thousand times the size of your average pheasant.

NEW YORK: PIRACY on the High Seas may be among the most dastardly of criminal activities, but when you look back at the Spanish Main with all its swashbuckling and early Hollywood Fairbanks and Flynn connotations, it remains among the most stirring and romantic.

A protracted telephone duel saw this striking early 17th century, Roman inlaid marble and hardstone table top go from a starting bid of £500,000 to a final price of £1,030,000 to top Sotheby’s Continental Furniture sale in London on December 13.

LONDON: SOTHEBY’S have signed a five-year lease to open a new 54,000 sq ft year-round saleroom at Olympia in west London from June next year. The first sale is expected to take place in September.

Auction houses want disclaimer clause included before payment. Buyers and sellers given a January 5 compensation claim deadline as part of the class action in the Sotheby’s/Christie’s collusion case face a dilemma.

UK: NEWMARKET auctioneers Vost’s say they expect to cease trading within the month after managing director John Vost quit in what he described as a “major boardroom disagreement”.

IN a week that has seen the NASDAQ plummet and general gloom settle over the dotcom world, the massive Tek Sing cargo sale has shown that the Internet can play an extremely useful role in the international auction scene.

NEW YORK: There was a flurry of activity at the Phillips New York (buyer’s premium 15/10%) auction of American Art last week as Benjamin West’s renowned painting of The Death of General Wolfe came up for sale.

A pencil drawing by Bronzino (1503-72) earned Fr10.6m (£960,000) at Piasa on November 20, the highest ever price for an old master drawing in Paris, and a world record for a Bronzino drawing.

Imagine being serenaded at your dinner table, preferably by one of the Python team, with the world’s smallest playable violin.

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.

“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.