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FLORIDA hosts a new design fair next year when ARTform, the International Fair for Dimensional Fine Art, debuts at the International Pavilion of the Palm Beaches in downtown West Palm Beach from March 6 to 11.

In May 1919 New Yorker Raymond Orteig offered a $25,000 prize for the first non-stop aeroplane flight from New York to Paris. In the ensuing eight years dozens of people managed to cross the Atlantic Ocean by air, but no one met Orteig’s criteria until eight years later when on May 20-21, 1927 Charles A. Lindbergh made the longest non-stop, heavier-than-air transatlantic flight in his plane, the Spirit of St Louis.

MUCH to the relief of the international trade, international buyers and discerning New Yorkers, the International Fine Art and Antique Dealers’ Show returns to The Seventh Regiment Armory, Park Avenue at 67th Street, New York from October 18 to 24.

On October 4, Christie’s New York sold the Harvey Plotnick Library on ‘The History of Quantum Physics and the Theory of Relativity’ for a premium-inclusive total of $1.78m (£1.15m).

THE Haughtons’ International is not the only fair in town in mid-October and very well worth a visit is the Gramercy Park Antiques Show from October 18 to 20 at the downtown 69th Regiment Armory on Lexington Avenue at 26th Street.

ST James’s dealer John Bly is the latest of an increasing number establishing a presence in the United States. He starts from December 10 to 14 with a selling exhibition with lectures, for which he will take over The Versailles Suite at New York’s famous Carlyle Hotel.

WITH the backing of 65 per cent of a PayPal shareholders vote, eBay have completed their acquisition of the leading online payments company. Despite the overwhelming approval of the merger, some shareholders did object to it, suing eBay and PayPal in an attempt to block the acquisition.

After the spectacular HK$37m (£3,394,495) price bid for the Yongzheng (1723-35) peach vase in Sotheby’s Hong Kong May 7 sale, their New York rooms had high hopes for this yellow ground famille rose double gourd vase, Qianlong period (1736-95), consigned by the same private US vendor, in their Chinese outing on September 19. They were not disappointed by the outcome.

Chinese Classic Furniture – The Dr S.Y. Yip Collection: It may come as a surprise to some to learn that the Ming dynasty’s minimalist huanghuali furniture has traditionally been more prized in the West than it has been in the East.

RAYMOND CHANDLER’S Philip Marlowe first appeared in The Big Sleep of 1939, and the copy seen above right, in a slightly chipped and torn jacket, sold for $8000 (£5160) in Pt. II of the ‘Detective Fiction Library of Richard M.Lackritz’, sold by Christie’s New York on September 24, but Chandler was not the writer who enjoyed the greatest success.

Two copies of Alcoholics Anonymoussigned by the founder of movement, Bill Wilson, were among the more successful lots in an August 15 Pacific Book Auctions sale of ‘Books in all Fields’.

PAYPAL, the leading online payment service, are facing a new challenge that could scupper eBay’s attempt to take them over.

ASIAN dealers and collectors wishing to escape the grime of city life for more wholesome surrounds could have done worse than take a busman’s holiday to America’s pukka east coast resort of Cape Cod where Eldred’s (15% buyer’s premium), held their annual Asian series in East Dennis, from August 20-24. “In Cape Cod people combine their vacation with the sales,” explained Eldred’s press officer Jo Leal Clark.

A Pennsylvanian enthusiast’s lifetime collection of faux bamboo furniture will be up for sale later this month in New York when it forms the centrepiece of Doyle’s sale of furniture, decorations and paintings on September 25.

The launch of the Art Las Vegas fair, scheduled for October 11 to 14 this year, has been postponed for a year.

A presentation set of The Writings of Mark Twain offered as part of the Sotheby’s New York sale of June 18, a 1903 ‘Hillcrest’ edition, lacked one of the 23 volumes and some of the spines and labels were darkened.

USA: The 200-lot literature section of a photograph sale held by Swanns on June 6 included a good run of the famous American publication, Camera Work, comprising Nos. 1 and 3-10 of the years 1903-05, plus the Steichen supplement of 1906.

Setting new standards of perfection in a condition-conscious toy marketplace at Skinner’s of Boston Massachusetts on July 20 was an unopened 1962 Mattel shipping carton containing 12 New Fashion Queen Barbies.

THE State of Illinois is on the verge of introducing a new law to tackle Internet fraud that could lead the way for legislation elsewhere in the US and across the world.

This muscular terracotta modellino of a moor, Il Moro, 2ft 75/8in high (80.5cm), attributed to Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680), wrested the top slot from a powerfully modelled pair of 16th century bronzes in Sotheby’s (19.5/10% buyer’s premium) 174-lot European Sculpture and Works of Art 900-1900 auction on July 9.