North-east England

This Lalique ‘cire perdue’ vase was discovered by Anderson & Garland in a house just outside of Morpeth, Northumberland during a routine probate valuation.

A collection of work by the late Sid Pollard, a well-known Yorkshire furniture maker, will go under the hammer at Addison’s sale in Barnard Castle, County Durham, on June 2.

TWO Chinese works of art valued at £1.8m have been stolen from Durham University’s Oriental Museum in a night-time raid.

THE uplifting story of how West Auckland FC won ‘the first world cup’ has gone down in the annals of English football.

THE year 2010 ended as it began with spectacular prices for Chinese works of art.

THANKS to a clever bit of detective work by one of its curators, the Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle has been able to reunite a porcelain cup and saucer that have separated for over 200 years.

NORTH East auctioneer Jim Railton has been fined £1000 after being charged over the sale of an Edwardian collection of birds’ eggs.

THE Northumberland auctioneer Jim Railton who was charged with offering and advertising 54 wild birds’ eggs for sale, has now been fined £1000 plus costs at Alnwick Magistrates Court.

ONE of the North East’s best-known auctioneers faces a substantial fine and a possible prison sentence after being charged over the sale of an Edwardian collection of birds’ eggs.

BRYAN Goodall, owner of the Hambleton Group which includes toy auctioneers Vectis of Stockton-on-Tees, has invested £600,000 in ArtsBank, a new gallery and arts centre in nearby Saltburn-by-the-Sea.

TO visit Vectis Auctions, the toy specialists based near Stockton-on-Tees with annual sales of £5m, is to catch a glimpse of the auction business as it might be in the future.

NORTHUMBERLAND auctioneer Jim Railton has taken over the Old Narrowgate Salerooms in Alnwick on a lease from the Duke of Northumberland.

THIS imposing but relatively plain 5ft 6in (1.69m) wide mahogany centre pedestal desk c.1760 was a last-minute entry to Addison's of Barnards Castle fine art and antiques sale on November 15.

Pre-war delivery vans advertising commercial brand names have long been the kings of the Dinky collectors’ market. This was reinforced on March 10 when Vectis of Stockton-on-Tees sold the so-called 5th Avenue Collection, which included examples bearing well known and long-forgotten brands.

“THE high point of my career,” was how auctioneer John Anderson described his most recent sale. He had waited 30 years but finally got the chance to offer the Lionel Jacobson collection at Anderson & Garland on March 11-13.

The increasingly prosperous North East of England will receive its first high-end antiques fair next February when 27 LAPADA or BADA dealers descend upon Linden Hall, near Morpeth in Northumberland.

JUDITH Lidell is celebrating the success of her first vintage fashion fair on her home patch of Newcastle-on-Tyne on Sunday November 19.

Before embarking on his 1907-09 expedition to the Antarctic, Ernest Shackleton sent Ernest Joyce and Frank Wild on a crash course in printing and had a press and associated materials loaded onto the Nimrod.

When the Troika pottery in Newlyn closed its doors in 1983 its moulds were secured for posterity, not in a local museum or the collection of a Troika devotee but in a garden shed in Northumberland.

AMONG the great grails of Maling collecting are the so-called Urbino style vases: 16in (41cm) high exhibition pieces c.1945 decorated in relief with a celebrated moment from classical mythology by Lucien Boullemeir to a design by Norman Carling. The scene shows Perseus holding aloft the Medusa’s head to petrify the sea monster and save the beautiful Andromeda, who is chained to the rocky shore.