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UK: ONE of a set of twelve 16th century Limoges enamelled plates, which were offered for sale by the Manchester auctioneers Capes Dunn during a special sale on May 25 conducted from the Assembly Rooms in Lytham to promote their regional office on the Fyld coast.

UK: PRICE GUIDE publishers Miller’s have issued a shortlist of contenders for the British Antiques and Collectables Awards, a new scheme which is being run for the first time this year, in association with the BBC Homes & Antiques Magazine.

UK: ARTS MINISTER Alan Howarth has set up a panel of experts to examine the illicit trade in art and antiquities with a view to advising the Government on steps to fight it.

FRANCE: A Paris court has told one of the world’s leading Websites to prevent French Web-users from gaining access to auctions featuring Nazi memorabilia.

UK: GIANT knives of the frontier period hold a special place in the heart of American collectors, and the late 19th century example by one of the leading Sheffield makers of Bowie-style knives for the American market – Brookes and Crookes – was eagerly contested by US bidders at Martyn Rowe’s Truro salerooms on May 26.

FRANCE: THE reform of France’s auction system now looks in sight following an agreement reached by a bicameral commission drawn from members of both the country’s parliamentary chambers.

UK: THE PHENOMENAL success enjoyed in the English speaking world by J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter... books has been expensively reflected in the antiquarian, or rather secondhand book world, where (even in the high priced modern firsts market) the prices being asked for Harry the First are almost unbelievable.

UK: The Kent County Council and Medway Bills, which will regulate the trade in art and antiques in the county, are to go forward to the committee stage after their second reading in the House of Commons on May 17.

UK: OVER half the images in the Craven collection of photographs offered by Bearne’s in Exeter on May 6 were by William, 2nd Earl of Craven.

UK: THE romance, expertise and astonishing prices at the Benacre sale came together when this pair of candelabra, above, were put up by Sotheby’s.

UK: A George II Irish mahogany centre table, 2ft 8in (81cm) wide, which featured at Bristol Auction Rooms on May 16, attracted interest from an Irish dealer who went to £25,000 (plus 10 per cent buyer’s premium), despite speculation by the auctioneer that the edging may have been altered and the top re-finished.

US: A concerted push into the market by Phillips meant that there were three major players on the Impressionst and Modern auction scene in New York last week.

UK: THE first week of May saw a rash of specialist photograph, auctions break out in England but the cream of the crop was a single-owner sale of vintage photographs collected by William, 2nd Earl of Craven (1809-1866), at Bearne’s in Exeter on May 6.

UK: THIS rare and unusual George II carved giltwood console table in the manner of William Kent modelled with an owl and probably carved by John Bonson of Savile Row sold for £520,000 (plus premium) – some ten times its estimate.

UK: JAMES Boswell’s question and Dr Samuel Johnson’s answer on the subject of China, c.1778.

UK: THIS bronze, Theseus Slaying the Minotaur, stamped Barye 1, made £105,000 at Sotheby’s on April 19.

HONG KONG: Christie’s and Sotheby’s enjoyed a successful start to their Spring series of sales in Hong Kong last week, despite some local difficulties.

FRANCE: AFTER two readings in both the Sénat and Assemblée Nationale, France’s auction reform bill still awaits ratification.

UK: “ONE of only two known examples of Marconi’s first commercial wireless set in complete condition”, was how this inconsequentially appearing box was described by the English trade underbidder at G.A. Key’s sale in Aylsham, Norfolk on May 4.

UK: THE designs of Charles Rennie Mackintosh are normally associated with stellar prices in the salerooms, but this stained birch day bed struggled to get away at Lyon and Turnbull’s Glasgow sale of Decorative Arts on April 18 and indeed had experienced a fair degree of ignorance or neglect in the course of its history.