Auctions

UK: EARLY oak remains one of the most selective markets but when a piece is right, like this 17th century dresser base, right, offered at the Cheltenham branch of Mallams (15 per cent buyer’s premium) on December 14, it will bring specialists running.

UK: To some people it may just be another brown wardrobe, c.1900, with a bit of fancy moulding, mounting and carving, but to players of the game called golf it is a precious, possibly unique, artefact that speaks fondly of an enduring obsession.

UK: EARLY 20th century ceramics were again very much in evidence at the Leicester rooms 500-lot pre-Christmas dispersal.

UK: THE current market for anything by L.S. Lowry (1887-1976) was highlighted on January 6 at Cranbrook Auction Rooms (10 per cent buyer’s premium) by this rather uncharacteristic signed crayon drawing, right, The Fat Man.

US: ILLUSTRATED right we have “three great old hardcover books about the early ‘movers and shakers’ of Hollywood’s Silent and Golden Years. Out of print since the years they were published...”

UK: THE general and specialist art sales held in Swindon in December are getting fairly short shrift here – 1350 lots were offered over two days – but before this report appeared, the Wiltshire firm had already held their first sales of the new year and the last of the old must necessarily be tidied away.

UK: A SUBSTANTIAL offering of furniture, most of it 19th century and brown, received a mixed response from the Scottish and North of England trade at the last Phillips sale in Edinburgh before Christmas.

UK: TAKE a look at this meuble d’appui right, mounted with gilt, painted with flowers and inlaid with olive, plum, rosewood, purpleheart and ebony – a sumptuous piece of late 19th century Gallic furniture, n’est-ce pas?

Silverware from Quincy Church US: WHEN the United First Parish Church of Quincy, Mass., established as the Braintree Church in 1639, was forced to choose between keeping a roof overhead or selling ecclesiastical silver so valuable that it was rarely used, the congregation voted to sell the silver.

UK: THE Norfolk auctioneers end their year with a typical 1400-lot, something-for-everyone sale aimed at the budget-conscious end of the market.

UK: PROVINCIAL auctions have come full circle with the increasing re-emergence of smaller auction houses from the shadow of the big four.

GERMANY: Telecommunication items sold at Auction Team Breker in Cologne included another great rarity: a Telefon-Globe Hide-A-Phone‚ manufactured c.1928.

Albert L. Marsh, a young inventor from Illinois, was granted a patent in 1906 for his discovery of an alloy that would only oxidize and burn up after many thousands of heating cycles.

UK: Veteran auctioneer Jim Collingridge of Christie’s South Kensington retired last month after a 56-year career at the rostrum.

UK: Early walnut is all about colour and choice of veneer, and this Queen Anne bureau bookcase 7ft 10in high by 5ft 9in wide (2.38 x 1.06) scored highly on both counts at the Partridge Green salerooms of Rupert Toovey on January 19.

As most followers of the genre know, auctions of sporting memorabilia are one field where the ‘collectable’ epithet carries equal, or arguably even heavier weight than the ‘antique’ one.

FRANCE: A LOUIS XVI mahogany gueridon with three scrolled legs, stamped Molitor, sold to the French trade in Dijon on December 9 for Fr1.6m (£150,000), five times estimate – even though the table was in indifferent condition, having been recovered from a local attic.

UK: QUITE possibly starting its long career as a Christmas present for a child, this Steiff teddy bear was the familiar target of collectors at the Horsham rooms of Latimers (15 per cent buyer’s premium) on December 14, the second of a two-day dispersal at this new addition to the Sussex auction world.

UK: A VOLUME containing a dozen reports, tracts and pamphlets relating to the 18th century trial of a local man, Aylsham lawyer Christopher Layer, went to Jarndyce at £400 in this first Aylsham sale of the year.

UK: DECORATIVE pieces stood out at this 1000-lot £104,000 sale of 1000 basically general lots.