Auctions

The niche market appears to be the driving force in silver sales today.

Yorkshire auctioneers and valuers DDM have joined a growing list of regional firms who have gone into receivership.

The cosy Dorset town of Sherborne is not usually associated with bloody revolution and armed struggle, but Sherborne-based Charterhouse Auctioneers have unearthed two items redolent with memories of the American Revolution.

The Richmond Gold Cup was one of the great Georgian flat races. Four miles, eight of the finest thoroughbreds of the day, and an ancient course set in the rolling Capability Brown parklands of Aske Hall.

BY IAN MCKAYWRITING about some of the more important items in his peerless private collection of atlases and geographies, the late Lord Wardington said of the Doria Atlas: “I just hope that it... will prove to be as good an investment in the future as I might have made in stocks and shares.”

When the Troika pottery in Newlyn closed its doors in 1983 its moulds were secured for posterity, not in a local museum or the collection of a Troika devotee but in a garden shed in Northumberland.

Setting a new house record for Holloways of Banbury, this enigmatic alabaster urn shot to £170,000 (plus 15% buyer’s premium) on October 18.

Pictured right is a Yongzheng period (1723-1735) egg-yolk yellow ground ‘cranes’ bowl that was offered on the second day of a three-day sale conducted by Bamfords in Derby from September 13-15.

Stained glass windows are not common fare in sales of English literature but the 2ft 8in (81cm) wide panel seen at Sotheby’s on July 12 merited inclusion on account of both its designer and its subject matter.

The well-known Worcestershire firm Andrew Grant are expected to close their fine art auction department.

Charles Hanson, formerly of Wintertons, launches his own auction business next month.

Lincolnshire auctioneers Golding Young established a new house record on August 10 when they sold this superb mahogany breakfront side cabinet right for £135,000 (plus 15 per cent buyer’s premium).

A DECADE after the Thurn und Taxis and Baden Baden sales in the 1990s, Sotheby’s are once again decamping to a German castle to stage another mammoth aristocratic auction.

At first glance there’s nothing very exciting at all about this Prattware pot lid.

The latest round of golf sales held up in Scotland threw up a now-familiar pattern of mixed results.

Long before J.R.R. Tolkien settled down to write The Hobbit, he had acquired a postcard reproduction of the ink, watercolour and gouache painting Der Berggeist (The Mountain Spirit).

Longcases sell well after prices hit plateauTHE 530 lots offered at Dreweatt Neate’s Bristol rooms in June covered most areas of the antiques trade with the exception of ceramics, but the sale was always going to be dominated by the strong 44-lot clocks section.

THE unexpected success of the pair of library chairs discussed above led the way at the Wisborough Green saleroom, but there was keen action, mainly in the three-figure range, across the three days when 1800 lots were offered.

TWO lots stood out among the 600 lots offered at Hampshire. One was an 18th century matched pair of brass barrelled flintlock pistols signed Burnford, London, which, because of a missing ramrod and broken trigger mechanism were catalogued a/f but sold to a collector at a quadruple estimate £1600.

Two very good stick barometers, in the popular 1820s form with bowfront and ebony-inlaid mahogany cases, were among the highlights at Grantham.