Suffolk

THIS large, 18in (45cm) high, London-made brass lantern clock, c.1660, proved the highlight of the recent single-owner estate sale conducted by Durrants of Beccles.

Lowestoft porcelain specialist and Suffolk auctioneer Russell Sprake marked 50 years in the auction business last month with perhaps his finest ever sale – and a record price for the factory at auction.

MANDER Auctioneers of Clare in Suffolk have moved to new larger premises three miles down the road at Lower Road, Glemsford, CO10 7QU.

ONE of the rarer acts of peace-time bravery saw the crew of the airship R33 awarded the Air Force Medal.They included George Ernest Long, whose medals and associated ephemera came up for auction at Lockdales of Ipswich on March 27.

ESTIMATED at £3000-4000, this 18th century mahogany decanter box retaining a pair of profusely cut double-magnum sized decanters c.1780, attracted multiple bidders at Suffolk saleroom Neal Sons & Fletcher of Woodbridge.

EAST Anglia auctioneers Sworders have ceased holding sales in Sudbury. The former Olivers saleroom in Burkitt’s Lane, Sudbury will now become an office and storage facility with all future consignments removed for sale to Stansted Mountfitchet.

MOST Star Wars aficionados are familiar with the story of the Flintshire pensioner who bought 20 Palitoy action figures for 49p each in 1978 and sold them at Stockton-on-Tees toy specialists Vectis for a small fortune in 2003.

WOODBRIDGE, Suffolk saleroom Neal Sons & Fletcher included a small collection of post-War silver by Robert Welch, Gerald Benney and Stuart Devlin in their November 18 sale.

THE dealer who bounced a cheque at Durrants Auction Rooms, reported in last week's ATG has come forward to say it was a 'hiccup' and the bill will be paid.

DURRANTS Auction Rooms have issued an alert about a man claiming to be an antiques dealer from Belgium, who has recently bounced a cheque for nearly £3500 at their rooms.

POLICE have asked for information about a theft that took place at Cavendish Antiques and Interiors in Suffolk in the early hours of April 11.

A BANKRUPT Suffolk antiques dealer who went on the run to Bulgaria after swindling creditors in a £1.9m fraud has been jailed for ten years.

Today Robert Baden-Powell is best known as the founder of the Boy Scout movement in 1908, but in the Edwardian era his name was synonymous with the Boer War, and specifically the 217 wretched days from October 1899 to May 1900.

Latest results now prompt a rethink in London on English porcelain as East Anglian enthusiasts take pride in collecting local factory’s output.

The highlight of the Lowestoft porcelain sale conducted by enthusiast Russell H. Sprake at The Beaconsfield Club, Lowestoft on the evening of October 27 was this rare blue and white birth tablet.

It’s not difficult to see how Dunhill ‘fish tank’ lighters got their name. Not only do these 1950s perspex and electroplated lighters resemble miniature aquariums, but most were decorated with aquatic subjects.

In June 1941 an 18-year-old apprentice cabinetmaker, L.F. Gillet of Stratford-on-Avon, won first prize in the prestigious Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers annual competition. The prize was a dovetailed steel and rosewood rebating mitre the ASW had specially commissioned from the Norris factory.

AS is often the case at regular provincial auctions these days, proceedings at Abbotts Auction Rooms' (12% buyer's premium) otherwise fairly routine, 438-lot September 8 sale were enlivened by a couple of novel entries.

NOW that few dealers can any longer afford routinely to buy pictures for stock, auctioneers, particularly provincial auctioneers, have become increasingly reliant on private individuals to take take up the slack at their art sales.

IN Antiques Trade Gazette No 1276, February 22, 1997, I reviewed a fascinating but somewhat disconcerting exhibition at Archeus Fine Art in London of drawings by Eric Hebborn (1934-1996), who has been described as the maker of the finest art fakes of the 20th century. The show offered rather convincing ‘Old Master’ drawings after the likes of Raphael, Rembrandt and Watteau, which were selling at prices up to £2500.