Auctions

For many of the 40- and 50-somethings who trawl the internet for Star Wars toys, the ‘holy grail’ object is the Palitoy Death Star play set.

Showground fair organisers have reacted with disappointment to the news that exhibitors must pay 20% VAT on pitch rentals.

JUST a month before their first scheduled sale, online auctioneers Fine Art Bourse have gone into receivership.

Paperweights from makers such as Caithness, Mdina, Selkirk, Wedgwood and Whitefriars go under the hammer at auctioneers Moore Allen & Innocent in Cirencester on August 7.

The 2015 NAVA Auctioneer of the Year competition takes place on September 23 at the Oxford Belfry.

A silver medal awarded to a lifeboatman who rescued sailors from a sinking ship in hurricane-force winds off the Kent coast in 1891 is to be sold at Canterbury Auction Galleries.

Yellow-ground wares from the Vincennes soft-paste porcelain workshops are great rarities.

Dutch online auction business Catawiki has raised $82m to build its business.

As dealers’ and buyers’ thoughts turn more to Pinot Grigio by the pool than art and antiques in August, only a few fairs rattle around to provide solace for those eager to earn or spend some money.

A photo album showing the former King Edward VIII giving Nazi salutes is on offer for the first time in 30 years, auctioneers Morgan Evans have revealed.

Opposition to controversial new laws governing cultural heritage in Germany is gathering pace. Auctioneers, dealers and collectors are backing a petition ‘preserving the right to privately collect’ and calling for German the government to rethink its proposals.

The George Cross medal group awarded to Second World War heroine Violette Szabό has sold for £260,000 at London auctioneers Dix Noonan Webb.

North-eastern auctioneers Addisons are closing down after almost a century in business.

It was included in one of the Ashmolean Museum’s greatest bequests but this magnificent salt cellar was subsequently discovered to be Nazi loot. Recently restituted, it soared to £850,000 at auction.

This rare Irish provincial silver punch strainer took £14,000 at Lawrences’ latest sale in Crewkerne. Dated to c.1740-60, it is struck twice for Joseph Johns, one of only a handful of silversmiths working in Limerick in the middle of the 18th century.

A study for one of Frederic, Lord Leighton’s (1830-1896) greatest paintings sold to an American private collector for £135,000 at Sotheby’s sale of Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite and British Impressionist Art.

This superbly patinated Shona hardwood headrest sold for £23,000 at only the second auction at new Stowmarket saleroom Bishop & Miller.

The Hôtel Drouot, the communal saleroom facility used by most Paris auctioneers, has welcomed the news that swathes of former staff members are to face charges relating to stolen property.

Two rare brooches by Wiener Werkstätte founder Josef Hoffmann (1870-1956) caused a sensation when they appeared in the recent Jugendstil and Design auction held at Kinsky in Vienna.

This striking 2ft 1½in (64.4cm) high Luba figural bowstand made c.1880 by the Warua Master was the runaway star of London’s high season sales.