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The board appointed to represent the interests of arts and antiques members at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors found itself out in the cold last week following a prolonged dispute with the executive body of the organisation.

THEY may look plain and simple, but this pair of silver wall-hanging candle scones had private and trade bidders clamouring to buy when they came up for sale last week at Colchester auction rooms Reeman Dansie.

HALLMARKS on new items made of precious metal may be scrapped under a Government bid to reduce red tape.

BUDGET proposals to encourage art giving by discounting inheritance tax could actually damage wider philanthropy says a specialist law firm.

FRENCH auction houses have toughened their stance on Chinese bidders after a series of well-publicised problems with non-payment.

ISLAMIC art dominated the London sales agenda last week with the first of the two bi-annual series of auctions devoted to this field in the capital.

THE London Islamic sales week got of to a ‘magic carpet’ start when Morton and Eden held an 81-lot sale devoted to the rarest Islamic coins.

THE organisers of Asian Art in London have announced that this year, for the first time, they will allow dealers from outside the UK to take part.

A £5000 reward has been offered for the return of the stock of Somerset jewellers Joseph Leonard, which was stolen in a raid on March 28.

THE mammoth, 875-lot, three-day sale from the collections of the Château de Gourdon staged by Christie's in Paris closed last week closed having raised a hammer total of €35.1m (£31.9m).

WE regret to announce the death of BADA member William McAdam Humble (known as "Mac") on March 17, following a brave fight against leukaemia.

AMONG the 30,000 papers released by the Margaret Thatcher Archive Trust earlier this month – and now available to the public at the Churchill Archive Centre – is a brief note on antiques fairs.

TWO William Burges windows that surfaced at auction in Salisbury last year have been sold back to the house for which they were originally made.

TOP-END furniture dealers Mallett made a £1.3m loss last year, a 30 per cent improvement on 2009.

A MAN who stole antiques worth more than £1.2m from country houses across the country has been jailed for nine years.

CHINA’s fourth largest auction house, the Beijing Council International Auction Company, have opened an office in the US with the aim of sourcing material to sell in mainland China.

ONE of the rarer acts of peace-time bravery saw the crew of the airship R33 awarded the Air Force Medal.They included George Ernest Long, whose medals and associated ephemera came up for auction at Lockdales of Ipswich on March 27.

THE 16-lot section devoted to Martin Brothers art pottery at Bonhams' latest Ceramic Design sale provided a number of the notable results.

ON visiting a bungalow just south of Knutsford for a probate valuation, Patrick Cheyne had been dismayed to find nothing of any value in the home itself – but rather better things emerged when he was shown the garage.

THERE is growing concern in the art and antiques trade about the termination of the cheque guarantee system this summer.