Dealers

WITH their move to new premises, Mallett have announced a profit for the first time in four years.

MALLETT have quit their New Bond Street showroom for Ely House in Dover Street, in the heart of Mayfair.

A DETAILED survey of the relationship between antiques dealers and their banks has highlighted a serious breakdown in communication and little inclination on the part of the financial institutions to understand the special nature of the antiques business.

THE Royal Mint stands accused of ripping off the public through sales of coins as collectables. Even the latest Olympic issue is affected, it is claimed. The problem has become so outrageous, says the UK's leading dealer in the secondary market in non-gold coins from the Royal Mint, that he has announced a boycott.

MALLETT have assigned the lease on their Bond Street rooms to fashion house Fendi and have confirmed that they are negotiating new premises in Mayfair.

TOP-END furniture dealers Mallett made a £1.3m loss last year, a 30 per cent improvement on 2009.

THE Arctic weather that struck the UK last week caused severe disruption during one of the busiest periods in the calendar for the art and antiques trade.

THE danger of taking commission on deals without the express knowledge of the vendor has been underlined by a High Court ruling. In it, a London dealer has been told that he was not entitled to keep a $1m commission he retained following the sale of a Leonardo da Vinci drawing in August 2007.

IN the week when dealer John Hobbs was due to meet his former restorer a London court, Dreweatts have announced they will be selling his stock at auction in December.

It could be less than a month until the date is named when antiquities dealer Malcolm Hay will be extradited to serve a four-year jail sentence in Greece – on the strength of no credible evidence.

DEALERS are being warned that they could be targeted by credit card fraud after a noticeable increase in cloned American Express cards.

PARIS furniture dealer Hervé Aaron was removed as President of France’s Syndicat National des Antiquaires (SNA) at its AGM on October 25 – to be replaced by the man he ousted two years ago, Christian Deydier.

FOR decades one of the world’s leading modern art dealerships, the Jan Krugier Gallery will close its New York headquarters at the end of this year and transfer all its operations to Geneva, Switzerland.

SHOWGROUND fair dealers are reminded to be vigilant after a visitor to the recent Newark fair had his pockets slashed.

THREE masked raiders who stole £30,000 of antiques from a Petworth gallery before leading police on a chase across the home counties, have been jailed.

THE eighth annual Dealers versus Auctioneers football match ended in a resounding victory for the dealers, thanks in no small part to a hat-trick from the man who founded the event, Edenbridge dealer Lennox Cato.

DEALERS Down Under have successfully fought off the recommendations of a government report that threatened to disrupt the status quo in the Australian art market.

DISGRACED New York art dealer Lawrence Salander has been jailed for a minimum of six years after pleading guilty to orchestrating one of the world’s biggest ever art frauds.

THIS year’s National Antiques Week (November 15-21) will see offers of 20 per cent discounts from dealers all over the country.

WHEN the Commission for Retail Preservation was set up by Kensington and Chelsea Council in 2006, the borough’s mayor at the time, Tim Ahern, was quoted in an official release, as follows: