Letters to the Editor

MADAM – A definition in your glossary is incorrect (ATG No 2382). Strictly, the terms verso and recto apply to books, meaning the left and right pages. Certainly they don’t both apply ‘to the back of a picture’.

MADAM – We can always count on Gavin Littaur to fill your letters page with a hefty dose of common sense (ATG No 2381). But I fear his dispute with Defra will come to nothing if my present spat with HMRC is anything to go by.

MADAM – In so many respects, anyone reading or watching the news over the last 12 months could quite easily believe that the whole world has gone mad.

MADAM – Further to handling horrors stories (Letters, ATG No 2379), I can remember visiting a general sale at WH Lane auction house in Penzance in the early ’70s, when all sales were general, and spying an interesting painting high up on the wall, was given permission to climb up to see it.

Stephen Campbell, descendant of Victorian engineer John Campbell, surprised his family last weekend when he revealed that he had bought his great-grandfather’s award-winning steam engine (Pick of the week, ATG No 2380).

MADAM – I am sure that others will have identified a mistake in your piece about William Powell Frith’s 'The Private View at the Royal Academy' (News, ATG No 2380).

MADAM – As a long-term collector of antiques, as well as a student of the auction scene and an active participant in the ongoing debate on the ivory ban, I thought that it might be helpful to bring readers up-to-date in respect of approaches I have made in recent months to Defra’s Ivory Policy Team.

MADAM – As a small volume trader in toys, games and collectables, I find your publication excellent, useful and informative. BUT I am becoming jaded with your headline policy.

MADAM – I have some sympathy with the vendor who would not allow his watch to be opened (Letters, ATG No 2376).

MADAM – Regarding Bid Barometer, ATG No 2377, your readers might be interested to know that the portrait painting featured is in fact a self-portrait of Helen Lessore (of Beaux Arts Gallery fame).

MADAM – I am following the current debate regarding the range and fairness of auctioneers’ fees.

MADAM – a simple question to auctioneers in general: are you in danger of slowly killing the goose that lays the golden eggs?

MADAM – Bearing in mind that auctioneering can be a university qualification (unlike dealing) and is an occupation that charges for its services, should there not be some form of censure and control over firms that get it so wrong?

MADAM – I totally agree with the comments made by Eddie Holt (‘Spectacularly wrong valuations? No thanks’, Letters, ATG No 2376) regarding valuations given by ‘experts’.

MADAM – Recently I was interested in an Chinese tile for sale at a well-known auction that was estimated at £5000-8000.

MADAM – I refer to your Brexit article (‘No deal warning for CITES-listed items’, ATG No 2376).

MADAM – Various of your correspondents over the last few weeks find that the prospect of paying for a condition report, as well as a buyer’s premium, sticks in their craw.

MADAM – At what point is the auction world going to own up and confront the shame of poor valuing?

MADAM – You continue to receive letters from dealers complaining about buyer’s premiums.

MADAM – I write to inform your readership of what I believe is potentially a disastrous new aspect of auction house practice.