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An ‘unworked’ ivory gong has been removed from exhibition at Sandringham House on the grounds that it was being used for commercial purposes.

The Antiquarian Bookdealers’ Association is to rebrand its young booksellers’ apprenticeship scheme as a training programme following a change in employment law.

A now-postponed plan by HMRC to require businesses and the self-employed to file tax returns quarterly rather than yearly “would create havoc” if it was imposed as scheduled in 2018, dealers have told ATG.

A £100 Lloyd’s Patriotic Fund sword, one of 23 awarded to captains who fought at Trafalgar, sold for $235,000 (£173,000), plus 15% buyer’s premium, to one of six phone bidders competing at James D Julia in Fairfield, Maine, on April 11.

A rare ebonised framed armchair after the original design by Edward William Godwin (1833-86) sold for £44,000 (plus 18% premium) at Moore Allen & Innocent in Cirencester on April 21.

A Spanish oil billed as an early work by Diego Velázquez (1599-1660) sold for €8m (£7m) at the Madrid auctioneers Abalarte on April 25.

An attempt by collecting agencies and copyright organisations to establish a global treaty on Artist’s Resale Right has been met with strong opposition from international trade bodies.

Several single-owner collections boosted the total of Tennants’ (20% buyer’s premium) Spring Fine Art Sale in Leyburn, North Yorkshire, on March 25.

Networking is far more than a good chinwag. As Baldwin’s of St James’s medal specialist Mark Smith explains, it can also be good business.

From Arthur Rackham to Gerald Scarfe, there is a burgeoning market for original illustration art of the 19th and 20th centuries.

In what has been a buoyant first quarter for clocks of quality, the 109 examples at Chiswick Auctions’ (22% buyer’s premium) March 21 sale of horology and European works of art made a significant contribution to the £225,000 taken by the 275 lots on offer.

What Aylsham auction house Keys (20% buyer’s premium) considered one of the largest private collections of Lowestoft ever to come to market was a near sell-out on March 21.

Held several times a year, the all-Cymru affair has been a regular fixture of Rogers Jones’ calendar for 16 years, offering primarily Welsh art and pottery.

Literary anniversaries are a good story to tell to potential sellers but do they bring greater interest and greater prices?

The overall value of online sales in the art market increased by 15% in the last year, though many buyers remain cautious about purchasing in this way, according to the annual Hiscox Online Art Trade Report.

A fine collection of Meiji and 19th century Chinese ivory works of art sold at Hansons (17.5% buyer’s premium) offered a window onto a turbulent market.

Saxon Durrant started his business Metroretro in 1994. His Essex firm offers bespoke and reclaimed furniture and also provides props to film production companies. He will be exhibiting at Salvo Fair on June 23-25.

It wasn’t so much a Road to Damascus moment for Edward Crichton but more the road back to Bury St Edmunds, a car journey that provided the Lacy Scott & Knight auctioneer with much-needed think time.

An Old Master marine painting looted by the Nazis during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944 has been returned to Poland.