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Underscoring a strength of demand for rhinoceros horn pieces seen in the recent specialist Asian sales, Chiswick Auctions achieved a house record on July 18 when this rhinoceros horn libation cup carved with carp feeding on a waterlily sold to a Taiwanese dealer at £46,000 (plus 15 per cent buyer’s premium). The 18th or possibly 17th century vessel was discovered by auctioneer William Rouse on the sideboard of a modest home in Hanwell, one of West London’s less fashionable suburbs.

The power of one major collection to transform an auction company’s figures was dramatically shown this month when Christie’s France announced sales figures of €122.8m (including premiums) for the first half of 2006.

M1, one of the most sought-after UK registration numbers, set a new world record price for a car number plate when it sold for £300,000 at Bonhams’ Goodwood Festival of Speed sale of Sports, Competition and Collectors’ Motor Cars and Automobilia on July 7.

Enigmatic, elusive, rarely seen, and classified as mad – but that’s our Dadd!

OF the many publications generated by Captain Cook’s exploits in the Pacific, the most curious is surely A Catalogue of the Different Specimens of Cloth Collected in the Three Voyages of Captain Cook to the Southern Hemisphere...

Christie’s took a major step into the world of virtual auctioneering last week with the launch of Christie’sLIVE, a real-time online bidding facility which they are to roll out over the next six months.

IT set a British auction record for a Shakespeare First Folio and made the highest price ever seen for a printed book at Sotheby’s London (20/12% buyer’s premium) – but hushed voices at the back of the saleroom were suggesting that the £2.5m hammer price represented pretty good value for a near-perfect copy of the most important book in English literature.

CINOA, the international confederation of art and antiques dealers, have put bringing on the next generation of the trade at the top of their agenda.

Culture Minister David Lammy has placed a temporary export ban on a highly important George II Gothick japanned cabinet from Easton Neston.

THIS year's RICS conference will be in Cambridge from Friday to Sunday, September 15-17. More details to follow, but block out the dates in your diaries now.

An early 19th century boxwood and bone Napoleonic prisoner-of-war model of the Third Rate 74-gun HMS Mars fired a shot across the bows at Hampton & Littlewood's (15% buyer's premium) Maritime Sale in Exeter on June 21 when it set a new house record of £60,000.

THE Design and Artist's Copyright Society (DACS) have made their first pay-outs to artists for the Droit de Suite resale levy.

THIS summer's Kensington Church Street Open Evening on June 29 proved a notable success for the many visitors who enjoyed the hospitality and company of the street's many dealers.

THE notorious map thief Edward Forbes Smiley III has appeared in court in the US where he admitted to stealing 97 antique maps worth more than $3m.

There was nothing dull or predictable about the coin sale at Spink on June 29 when an expectant crowd gathered to witness the sale of one of the rarest of English Medieval coins: the gold Double Leopard florin of Edward III which was minted for only a few months in 1344.

A COURT ruling means new Venice auction house San Marco can proceed with their July 8-9 sale - but only under strict conditions.

THE International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) are calling for a complete ban on the trade in ivory products on eBay - including antiques.

More suited to the wall than the bed and more a piece of social history than a functional textile, this 19th century appliqué felt coverlet reaped the rewards when it sold for £24,000 (plus premium) at Kerry Taylor auctions in association with Sotheby's on June 26.

Record turnover at London flagship sales but the buzz of the 1980s has gone