Organisations

UPWARDS of 200 invited guests arrived at the Tate Britain on Tuesday night last week to celebrate one of the most notable successes in the art trade in recent years.The occasion: the fifth anniversary dinner for the British Art Market Federation.

LAPADA, the UK’s largest association of professional art and antiques dealers, is pioneering a new scheme that could see it merge with a leading European association.

CHECKOUT, the payment feature introduced by eBay last month to streamline transactions, is to be altered following a campaign against it by sellers.

THE British Art Market Federation has been named the winner in the Best Public Affairs Campaign category of trade magazine PR Week’s annual awards scheme.

Listed on eBay on October 15 with an opening bid of just $75, within seven days this gold plastic PEZ space gun dating from the late 1950s/early ’60s had attracted a final bid of $6262 (£4540). At today’s prices, that’s more than 22 times the cost of an ounce of real gold.

MALCOLM HORD has announced that he is to retire as chief executive of LAPADA, the Association of Art and Antique Dealers, at the end of May next year.

A NEW survey has just been published showing how much better fine period furniture has proved as an investment compared to the stock market and property over the past 30 years.

Lovers of matters horticultural and supporters of the National Trust will be able to combine both interests this month. Sotheby’s September 25 sale of Garden Statuary and architectural items at Billingshurst includes a special 21-lot section titled The National Trust Gardens Year Auction comprising items donated to the Trust for sale as part of its Gardens Year celebrations with the aim of raising money for its Gardens Fund.

On September 11 Ebay suspended trading in all items relating to the World Trade Center or the Pentagon until October 1 as a mark of respect to victims and their families.

eBay has beaten predictions once again in its latest set of results, showing impressive growth in revenues as well as in the number of registered users.

UK: JONATHAN Horne, the well-known British ceramics dealer, pictured centre, has been elected the new chairman of the British Antique Dealers Association. He follows John Bly, pictured left. Also pictured is the Rt Hon Peter Brooke CH, who has been elected President of the BADA for the seventh year.

ANGELA Nevill has been elected chairman of the Society of London Art Dealers and Christopher Battiscombe will take over as general secretary at the beginning of September from Neil Smith, who retires at the end of July.

IT APPEARS that simple economics may be catching up with eBay sellers, at least in the antiques and collectibles sector. Everyone knows the law of supply and demand: if supply is low and demand high, prices go up. If supply is high and demand doesn’t increase accordingly, prices go down.

A pair of early Levi’s jeans dragged from the mud of a Nevada mining town were worth far more than their weight in gold when sold through eBay on May 25.

A number of dealers have contacted the Antiques Trade Gazette concerning a couple passing false cheques in antique shops across Dorset, Devon, Oxfordshire and Berkshire.

THE Society of Fine Art Auctioneers celebrated its silver jubilee at the Royal Thames Yacht Club in Knightsbridge last week, with chairman Chris Ewbank announcing a surge in membership.

SALES to overseas buyers now account for 63 per cent of business among members of the British Antique Dealers Association, according to BADA’s latest survey for 1999/2000.

BRITISH Art Market Federation chairman Anthony Browne has appealed to the Government to continue the fight to protect domestic trade interests from the worst aspects of droit de suite.

Internet auction giant EBay Inc. is to follow Yahoo in banning the sale of artefacts from Nazi Germany, in the hope of avoiding legal problems in other countries.

LAPADA, the Association of Art and Antique Dealers, have set out a three-point plan to help the trade meet the demands of the Kent Bill. They also plan to use the scheme to monitor possible legislation elsewhere across the country.