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Two weeks ago (Issue No. 1478) we reported the sale of Sigmar Polke’s re-discovered 1963-64 Untitled Doppel portrat, above left, at a record £1.05m at Sotheby’s February 7 Contemporary Art Sale in London to the German collector Friedrich ‘Mick’ Flick.

How a trade veteran fixed rate for his estate left to charity... UK: THE great question that every dealer must address when death approaches is what to do with all those antiques accumulated in the home after a lifetime of business.

UK: THE market for Sir William Russell Flint (1880-1969) may have dropped somewhat in recent years – to no noticeable sorrow among the more avant garde – and only 61 of the 101 prints and watercolours got away at Bonhams & Brooks’ (15 per cent buyer’s premium) in London on February 28 .

DRAMATIC swings in the prices of precious metals over the past week have seen platinum rise by 13p per gram while silver has fallen by 9p an ounce.

UK: THE current strength of the market for anything by L.S. Lowry (1887-1976) has often been reported in these pages. On February 23 it was the turn of Chichester auctioneers Strides (15 per cent buyer’s premium) to experience the lure of the Salford-born artist when Old houses, the 15 by 19in (38 x 48cm) oil on plywood shown here, came under the hammer.

UK: TALES of the glory of Swedish feats of arms have faded somewhat since the days of Gustavus Adolphus and Charles XII but the Swedes went on producing quality armaments and armour as was shown this unusual offering, right, at the January 31 sale held by Birmingham specialists Weller & Dufty (15 per cent buyer’s premium).

ITALY: THIS quasi-Roman coin (34mm) of Hadrian – actually a ‘cabinet piece’ made in 16th century Padua (the main centre for this type of replica) for the more romantic type of collector – made Li500,000 (£170).

UK: A rather tatty, plain appearance warranted an estimate of £800-1200 on this George III architect’s table at Neales’ sale in Nottingham on February 23, but its virginal structure encouraged interest from the highest reaches of the London trade.

UK: ILLUSTRATED here is a plan of Aberdeen, one of 47 double-page engraved or litho plans (some folding) from a copy of John Wood’s Town Atlas of Scotland of 1818-26, rebound in modern boards, which sold for £2800 in the Lyon & Turnbull sale of February 17.

Sales in the USA 20th Century Lighting and Quality Antiques was the title of the $2.2m (£1,549,295) January 27 sale conducted by Fontaine Auction Gallery (12 per cent buyer’s premium) in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, but it was certainly the former that made this quarterly catalogue so noteworthy. Of 497 lots offered, almost 200 were occupied by table/boudoir lamps, light fittings shades and stained glass panels by the likes of Handel, Pairpoint, Suess and, of course, the Tiffany Studios.

UK: FOLLOWING these Surrey room’s Gaudy Welsh extravaganza last November, a further 40 pieces featured in their 500-lot January sale.

FRANCE: NOT exactly what you might choose to wear on St Valentine’s Day but this was the array of iron headwear on offer at the Etude Tajan Haute Epoque sale at Drouot on February 14.

Ceramics – The Jack Hacking Collection UK: THE JACK Hacking collection of English ceramics, offered by Phillips’ Bayswater (15/10 per cent buyer’s premium) rooms back on January 23, was a less academic, more eclectic property than Norman Stretton’s. But it was not by any means a general collection since it had quite specific areas of interest.

ITALY: NOW that Christie’s numismatic sales have been subsumed into Spink’s they are no longer held in London. However, they offered some very appealing pieces in Rome on December 13 and 14.

London: Back in the 1860s, long before the days of Action Man and GI Joe, what did a young lad do if he wanted a manly miniature role model, a real boy’s toy?

SWITZERLAND: ABOUT 75 people filled the room at the Tkalec sale of Greek and Roman coins on February 19. For collectors of useless information (and aren’t we all?) I can report that the T of Tkalec is not pronounced and that the name is the old Croat equivalent of ‘Weaver’.

UK: THERE is a distinctly nervous look about the Dodo pictured here, as befits a creature staring extinction in the beak. This “Facsimile of [Roelandt] Savery’s picture of the Dodo in the Royal Gallery at Berlin” is a plate from H.E. Strickland & A.G. Melville’s The Dodo and its Kindred; or the History, Affinities and Osteology of the Dodo, Solitaire and other Extinct Birds of the islands Mauritius, Rodriguez and Bourbon.

UK: The National Arts Collection Fund has announced that it is to oversee the bequest of 250 works from the studio of the visionary painter Cecil Collins (1908-89) to about 50 galleries and museums across the country.

ITALY: ANOTHER Renaissance magnate, the Doge of Venice, Antonio Grimani (1521-23). His (29mm diameter) portrait medal made Li2m (£670).

US: THE Isle of Wight is seen at lower right in the map illustrated here, which is part of the first large-scale geological map of any country ever issued, Delineation of the Strata of England and Wales, with Part of Scotland... by William Smith.