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UK: AROUND this time of the month it’s always a pleasure to report from that most elegant of cities, Bath where, as readers will know, members of the Bath and Bradford on Avon Antique Dealers Association take turns each month to donate the sale price of an item of stock to the NSPCC.

PHILLIPS have assigned exclusive live broadcast rights for their auctions to The Auction Channel ... just as Bonhams announce that they have beaten the other three leading auction houses to offer real time bidding via the Internet – again with The Auction Channel.

UK: “THE richness of the language in which this manuscript is written speaks redolently of the period, and of the writer himself,” said the Phillips cataloguer of an illuminated manuscript of religious meditations which sold at £4400 to Quaritch.

Did dropping datelines alter customers’ perceptions?

UK: PICTURED here are three of best-sellers from a trio of horological sales held in the London rooms last month, all of which fared well in terms of overall selling rates.

£25,000 bid sees trade becoming less perfectionist in hunt for quality UK: FEW dealers will talk bullishly on the record and the auction scene in the provinces does remain patchy – but all the evidence is that there is still money around and auctioneer Guy Schwinge saw its effect at his latest Dorset sale.

UK: WITH the re-branding of Sotheby’s saleroom in Billingshurst (see the News Briefing section - 'Sotheby's revamp Sussex operation') Summers Place leaves behind its image as Sotheby’s last saleroom foothold in the UK provinces and assumes its position as the company’s second stronghold in the South.

Ceramics at Sotheby's South

UK: WHILE Christie’s sale of the collection of the Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava lacked much of the memorabilia one so often associates with these events, the personal gap was filled in some measure by the elements from The Owl House.

UK: ONE OF THE principal successes in the printed portion of this sale was a copy of the 1827 Evans auction catalogue of the Library of the Late Lord Byron....

UK: FOR the moment at least the great international wine auctioneering machine grinds on serenely enough with lottage selling rates routinely at levels of 90 per cent or better.

UK: TWO new major records in the past ten days are proof positive that provincial salerooms can still attract the very best quality amid all the talk of availability declining.

UK: IT HAD been forged as ecclesiastical strongchests for church treasure in medieval Europe and wrought in the form of bedsteads in 17th century Italian villas, but it was only with the rise of industrial manufacture and the growth of the middle-classes in the 19th century that iron became a commonplace element in the gardens, and then the houses of the British gentry.

UK: PRINCIPAL FOCUS of attention at this auction was the range of private press, limited edition and other modern illustrated books on offer.

UK: FURNITURE from the East Coast of Africa is hardly common currency within the Cotswolds antiques trade but it was given unusual prominence last month with the appearance of this substantial 18th century hardwood chest with brass studwork decoration at the Gloucestershire rooms of Wotton Auction Rooms on March 23-24.

UK: UNUSUAL collectables on the first day and standard furnishings on the second at this 495-lot Essex dispersal.

UK: AS two of the wealthiest and most densely populated of the Southern Counties – housing large communities of former expats, retired professionals and alpha-class commuters – it is hardly surprising that West and East Sussex have a multitude of salerooms.

UK: IS this Gothic revival red walnut foldover card table, left, another rediscovered work by the great William Burges?

UK: A SMART pair of George III coasters, 61/4in (16cm) diameter – appealing for their wirework gallery and turned hardwood bases centred by (possibly later) crested central roundels – was unearthed by George Kidner auctioneers during a house clearance, neglected and black with dirt.

Works of Art at Sotheby's South