North-west England

Until electricity became commonplace in homes, the power source of choice for the gramophone was a spring motor that required frequent winding. One unusual solution to silent interludes at the dinner dance was to power the device by hot air.

This rare oak Slazenger tennis racket press featured in the Vintage & Antique toy sale at Mitchells (20% buyer’s premimum) of Cockermouth on July 20.

The prolific artist Percy Kelly (1918-93) was averse to the limelight and only a few of his paintings were shown publicly during his life. But a major retrospective at the Tullie House gallery Carlisle in 2015 and a birth centenary last year has helped raise the Cumbrian artist’s profile.

Entered by a vendor who hated them, a pair of 6in (15.5cm) long 19th century nutcrackers reflected in their way two different aspects of auctioneering today: how smaller country firms see their future and what will happen to antique ivory items when most of the trade in them is banned.

Marking 20 years in business, Clark Art is holding a show featuring works by some of the key artists it has championed across two decades.

A model example of trans-European trucking, this diecast van advertising a Swiss company was made in Italy and sold to a German buyer at the Runcorn rooms of British Toy Auctions (18% buyer’s premium).

Benefiting from the continuing fashion for late 19th century novelty mantel clocks, a gilt-brass and steel example by Guilmet made the running at Peter Wilson (22% buyer’s premium) of Nantwich.

A collection of Meissen figures, many by Johann Joachim Kaendler (1706-75) and his assistants, met keen interest at Adam Partridge’s (20% buyer’s premium) auction.

The floods which swept north-west England at the end of July involved major downpours hitting Congleton in Cheshire. This included Victoria Mill Antiques and Collectors’ Centre on the edge of town, which stayed open despite flood damage, as this Twitter picture below shows.

A fine Victorian building in the town of Cockermouth in the Lake District which was built in 1868 for the founder of Mitchell’s Auctions – whose saleroom is still in the town – is now home to the Fairfield House Antiques Centre.

Did a watch offered for sale in Carlisle at the end of July once belong to Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658)? Two centuries of provenance suggest it did.

Shown below is a spread from a 120pp manuscript collection of Scottish songs with accompanying musical notation, on paper watermarked 1799, that sold at £600 in a Thomson Roddick (17.5% buyer’s premium) sale.

Edinburgh gallery Fettes Fine Art offers a painting by Scottish artist John Phillip at its local Galloway Fair this week.

Cheshire auctioneer Adam Partridge is in talks with the administrator of Wright Marshall Fine Art Auctioneers to buy its Knutsford fine art business.

Diane Evans-Taylor is a vintage dealer and runs an upholstery business in the Cumbrian town of Ulverston.

Miners heading to work in the early morning with lit lamps, denizens of northern pubs with flat caps and pipes, women pushing prams or hanging up the washing: these figures populate the works of Norman Cornish (1919-2014), the ‘pitman painter’.

Percy Kelly (1918-93) was so averse to the limelight that only a few of his paintings were ever shown publicly during his life. But a major retrospective in 2015 and a birth centenary last year has helped raise the Cumbrian artist’s profile – and his prices.