News topics

A NEW code of conduct has been agreed to offer standard guidelines for locating and unearthing treasure trove.

“This was the earliest Cup Final programme I’ve ever seen,” said Graham Budd (15% buyer’s premium), referring to lot 747 in his sale on May 9-10 in association with Sotheby’s Olympia.

THE world stamp market is reeling this week after what could prove to be a €5bn pyramid selling scheme was unmasked in Spain.

ATG have learnt that the strong prices for precious metals on the commodities market has meant some dealers have started selling silver and gold antiques as scrap.

Hedge funds continue to stake a claim on big-ticket names

SOTHEBY’S have recorded a 30 per cent rise in first quarter revenues from 2005, with the 2006 total coming in at $96m.

PHILLIPS de Pury & Company are to open a new London saleroom and hold a special Contemporary Art and Design auction on October 14 during the Frieze fair.

Pablo Picasso has become the ultimate luxury brand. On May 3 at Sotheby’s New York Picasso’s rare and iconic 1941 portrait, Dora Maar au chat, became the world’s second most expensive painting when it sold for $85m (£48.3m) to a mystery buyer in the room, widely presumed to be representing a Russian oligarch.

THE value of UK exports of antiques to Hong Kong almost trebled in 2005 according to the latest Customs figures.

THE Office of Fair Trading are to conduct a survey of internet shopping habits and will report their findings next spring.

SOTHEBY’s have hit back at claims that investors are losing confidence in the art market despite the company’s biggest shareholder selling their entire stake.

It gives some idea as to how furniture connoisseurship has changed that the upholstered high-back chair pictured here could once have been accepted as an original furnishing from the bedroom of Mary Queen of Scots.

All Bank of England banknotes issued prior to the early 1800s are rare but the note, pictured here, dated 30 August 1705, is believed to be the oldest in private hands.

...but Web provider still won’t budge on credit card charges

MUSSOLINI’s son-in-law and foreign minister, Count Galeazzo Ciano, would have done well to heed the imagery of this black glazed terracotta head when another version of it came into his possession.

SWIFT-Find, the international registry of valuable items, have bought the Trace stolen valuables database from the Invaluable Group.

EBAY have posted first quarter net revenues of $1.39bn, just over predictions and 35 per cent up on the first quarter of 2005.

A Bedford woman who was downsizing homes decided to enter this piece of family silver into her local auction house. It proved to be the stellar entry in W&H Peacock’s April 7 antiques sale when, after generating considerable pre-sale attention from the London silver trade, it far outstripped the saleroom’s unpublished expectations of around £3000-5000, selling to one of their number for £28,000 (plus 12.5% premium).

AS ATG went to press, the price of silver appeared to be steadying following the dramatic fall seen late last week.

THE Australian government has acted to protect indigenous artists following media reports that exposed exploitation and corruption in the Aboriginal art world.