US

US: SOTHEBY’S have opened their new-look, custom-built Manhattan headquarters at 1334 York Avenue, New York, adding six new floors above the four which previously housed the auction house.

US: PROFITS from the catalogue for Christie’s New York’s October 27 and 28 Marilyn Monroe auction may bring as much as the sale itself.

UK & US: A NEW Internet auction house, due to launch simultaneously in the United States and the UK on October 15, aims to woo dealers in high value art and antiques by special incentives and simplifying the process.

FRANCE: THE French government is to prosecute New York art dealer Adam Williams for handling stolen goods after a painting he bought at Christie’s in London turned out to be Nazi looted art. A successful prosecution could have serious repercussions for the Trade.

UK: THE Russians had the brains for a head start in the space race but the Americans possessed the capital to fund a sustained interest in rocket programmes.

UK & US: THE former Director of Phillips in America, Paul Roberts, has been appointed both vice chairman of the new-look Edinburgh outfit Lyon and Turnbull and president of Freeman Fine Arts of Philadelphia, with the aim of forging business links between Scotland and America's oldest independent auctioneers.

US: A NEW record for a United States coin has been achieved at auction in New York with the sale of a silver dollar for a premium-inclusive $4.14m (£2.63m) on August 30.

US: TIFFANY stained glass authority Alistair Duncan was convicted on Thursday by a New York federal jury on all five counts of trafficking in Tiffany windows stolen from cemetaries and mausoleums.

US: CHRISTIE'S have decided to place British expertise at the helm in New York with the promotion of their London managing director, Edward Dolman, to managing director of Christie’s in America.

PHILLIPS have announced the appointment of Mark O. Howald as managing director of Phillips-Selkirk in St Louis as of May 1, 1999.

US: THE bonanza of Impressionist and 19th century art sales in New York, headlined by the record $55m (£33.5m) hammer price paid for a Cézanne still life, has highlighted various trends in the market, not least the dominance of Post Impressionist works.

US: ON August 15 1876, nearly ten years after his fellow American inventor Christopher Scholes had offered the world its first ever typewriter, Thomas Edison patented an electric method for the small businessman to print and copy several documents.

US: How do you titillate an ocelot? You oscillate its tit a lot. Kenny Everett’s immortal insight into the sexual life of one of the obscurer members of the cat family is usually quite difficult to drag into an auction report. But how can titillation be resisted when someone is prepared to pay $525,000 (£324,075) for this painting of an ocelot at Sotheby’s New York (15/10 per cent buyer’s premium).

US Round-Up (February-March Pt.II) THE FIRST 350 lots of the February 15-16 sale held by Pacific Auction Galleries comprised books from the library of the Zamorano Club, a society of book lovers, founded in 1928, which takes its name from the first known printer in California, Augustin Vicente Zamorano, who set up a press in Monterey in 1834.

Works of Art at Sotheby's South

...but it's still bad for you US: HOT news from health-conscious America. After years of campaigning from pro-winers, the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has agreed to allow the words DO CONSULT YOUR DOCTOR ABOUT THE BENEFICIAL EFFECTS OF DRINKING WINE to be added to the back label, as well as the statutory health warning. So now it’s official. Not only is wine bad for you, but it’s good for you as well.

US: A ‘FINE & RARE’ sale held by Pacific Book Auctions on February 25 saw strong bidding for botanical plate collections, with a very rare first edition of Description des plantes nouvelles et peu connues, cultivés dans le jardin de J.M.Cels selling at $22,500 (£13,390).

US: THE object pictured here provided, literally and figuratively, the crowning glory of a highly successful $3.65m sale of Judaica at Sotheby’s New York on March 16.

GAVELNET.COM, the San Francisco-based Internet auction specialists have denied claims that they are winding up their UK operation.

Sotheby’s evening sale of Contemporary art in New York on November 13 achieved the highest total for any auction in the company’s history.