London

LAPADA have confirmed that their Royal Academy fair will go ahead from May 10 to 13 next year.

IT was the Gothic furniture that was in strongest demand at Sotheby’s Haute Epoque sale in Bond Street last week, none more so than this massive 16th/17th oak refectory table that was bid to an astonishing £420,000 (plus premium).

AFTER a quarter of a century, Lindy Berkman has been forced to call time on her antiques and collectors’ fairs held five times a year at Alexandra Palace.

A City livery company for art market professionals could be only 10 years away following the official registration of The Guild of Arts Scholars, Dealers and Collectors by the City of London.

SCOTLAND Yard’s Art and Antiques Unit are staging an exhibition at the V&A to raise awareness among museums, galleries and art dealers of the problem of fakes in London.

CLARION Arts have named their Spring Olympia fair FORM.

CONTEMPORARY art has helped the Fine Art Society triple its turnover in the past four years, according to results just released.

£57m Indian summer for auction rooms

Renowned Bristol-born graffiti artist Robert Banks, better known as Banksy (b.1975), has made himself into a globally-recognised phenomenon by planting his subversive guerrilla artwork in the world’s best galleries, museums, and amusement parks.

When Sotheby’s sold the first portion of the Wardington library of atlases and geographies last year, London dealer Bernard Shapero set a cartographic auction record by paying £1.3m for the ‘Doria’ atlas, a superb collection of so-called Lafreri School maps of the latter part of the 16th century.

Spink have added musical instruments to their portfolio by taking an equity stake in Brompton’s Auctioneers. They will operate from Spink’s newly expanded premises at 29 Southampton Row in London WC1, starting with a sale on November 6.

PROGRAMME Monthly and Football Collectable is a monthly magazine for football programme and memorabilia collectors. Published since 1981, it offers collecting advice including football programme prices and features famous programme covers.

“I leave to my dear friend Taffy my Compass so that he may occasionally know where he is going/ My Watch which almost cost me my life so that he may occasionally arrive at an appointed time / With Regards from his erstwhile passenger Lawrence.”

MICK Jagger and Keith Richards may be doing well for 60-somethings, but they’ve got nothing on this old rocker. Dated to 1610, it is thought to be the oldest known rocking horse in the UK and was quite likely made for Charles I.

On September 26 Baldwin’s Auctions obtained £210,000 (plus 15% buyer’s premium) for this unique gold medallic triple unite of Charles I – proof that the rarities in the English coin market are now attaining trophy status.

THE new owners of Atlantic Antiques have set out to reassure dealers at Antiquarius, The Mall in Islington and Rogers Antiques Gallery in Portobello about plans for the future. Following last week’s ATG report, they say that there will be no significant changes or rent rises, that the centres have enjoyed a recent revival and that they will concentrate on letting several unoccupied properties acquired with the portfolio.

BEAD-collecting tends to fall between jewellery and tribal art and is often overlooked as a collecting area in its own right.

Bonhams to stage private exhibition of unique hoard.

THE Bloomsbury Postcard and Collectors Fair is now in its 22nd year and is, say organisers IPM Promotions, the largest monthly postcard fair in the world with more than 120 tables selling all types of paper collectables.

WHERE polar exploration collectables are concerned, Christie’s have in recent years enjoyed, if not a monopoly, then certainly a strong grip on the auction market.