Online portals

Amazon are to compete for a share of the thriving online trade in antiquarian and secondhand books, having acquired rights to use the British Library’s bibliographic catalogue as a searchable database.

THE United States has taken a lead in art restitution by setting up a website to track Nazi-looted art. The Nazi-Era Provenance Internet Portal which has just gone online, will provide a database of museums collections – 70 have signed up so far – for checks on art that disappeared in Europe between 1933 and 1945.

As part of the on-going development of the Gazette website, antiquestradegazette.com is now asking users to log in when using the site. Access to the site and all its services from Lot Find to Price Guide remains free of charge.

The second birthday of the Gazette’s web site (it was officially launched in May 2001) saw its usage rise to new heights with over 2 million hits and nearly 300,000 pages viewed in a single week.

AFTER what seems an unending number of complaints about unscrupulous online fair guides charging for unwanted advertising, the Antiques Trade Gazette has now heard about what appears to be a new scam.

ONLINE antiques and collectables mall GoAntiques.com have filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code in the United States.

THE Office of Fair Trading are investigating the activities of a London-based listings firm whose mailshots to the trade have sparked complaints.

ST James’s art dealer Peter Nahum is behind a website just launched specifically with the art and antiques trade in mind. Called Penseroso, it has taken Mr Nahum and his team three years to develop and although there are already website systems aimed at the trade he feels none has fully understood the specialist needs of a dealer.

A flat annual user fee of about £1100, private access to fresh-to-market high quality pieces, and no buyer’s premiums to pay. A pipedream? Not according to new venture Whozbuyingwhat.com, an antiques Website that is attempting to introduce a new concept in trading in the market.

Yahoo will close five of its auction sites in Europe and instead promote eBay’s competing auctions as part of an agreement the companies announced on last week.

THE trade will soon be able to scour museum collections all around the country from the comfort of their own homes.

FEARS that the UK arm of online sales provider icollector have gone bust are not founded, the company’s UK spokesman Mark Hill has reassured Antiques Trade Gazette.

Finelot chairman John Bly reassured investors last week that the on-line dealership, which made a loss of £1.44m last year, should make a profit by 2004.

YAHOO have succeeded in their court bid to deny French government jurisdiction over the firm’s activities outside France.

Cloudband.com, the specialist Website firm for rugs and textiles, have had their financing badly hit as a direct result of terrorist attacks in New York on September 11.

MASTERING search engines is the key to gaining better exposure on the Internet, according to one firm who have started offering an alternative to signing up to major portal sites.

ICOLLECTOR intend to bring in more revenue by introducing a subscription rate of around £40 a month for their Auction Search service and extending banner advertising on their Website.

QXL have temporarily suspended Hugh Scully’s antiques valuation site while they conduct a summer review of their services.

USA: THE United States government is taking serious steps to beat Internet fraud and is consulting leading e-commerce figures on how to go about it.

UK: ONE hundred and seventy five years of independent ownership is an awe-inspiring feat in an antiques market that has changed beyond recognition in the past decade. But this Manchester firm has moved with the times by issuing digital photographs and publishing their catalogue on the Internet.