West Midlands

An Elkington electroplated duck press outsold silver proper at Halls (20% buyer’s premium) of Shrewsbury on March 20.

In 'The Countryside Through Art', mid-century specialist Fifties Art & Design offers three views of a nearby landmark by John Piper (1903-92).

Detailed down to pneumatic tyres, knock-off hub caps and rack-and-pinion steering, the clockwork toy of Alfa Romeo’s P2, the world-beating racing car between 1924-30, was produced by CIJ (Compagnie Industrielle du Jouet) from 1924-35.

A country house car boot to raise funds for a newly opened specialist equestrian centre in Much Wenlock, Shropshire, will run at the 800-acre Isle Estate at Bicton near Shrewsbury on Sunday May 12.

Based in one of the great centres of English glass, Fieldings (20% buyer’s premium) of Stourbridge has been building its reputation for glass sales over the past 15 years and today “nobody sells more glass than we do”, says specialist Will Farmer.

After abandoning his early career as a contributor to Punch and the Illustrated London News, Myles Birket Foster (1825-99) went on to establish his reputation as a painter of technically skilled and highly polished watercolours, depicting landscapes and rustic subjects from Scotland to the Mediterranean.

In 1835, artist George Baxter (1804-67) patented his method for affordable, mass produced colour printing. The combination intaglio and relief process became known as the ‘Baxter method,’ and the resulting images are a window into how Victorians viewed the major events of the mid-19th century.

Among the most desirable of all needlework samplers are those associated with pupils at the Ackworth School, founded as a co-educational boarding school in 1779 by the Quaker physician John Fothergill and still thriving today.

Iconic names in the worlds of glass and ceramics starred in Kingham & Orme’s (20% buyer’s premium) wide-ranging March 1 sale at Evesham.

Recalling the Marchioness of Townsend and Lady Stanhope at the Antiques for Everyone fair.

Whatever it may be, someone, somewhere will be avidly collecting it.

The lot that gained all the publicity in a recent Shropshire sale, even national newspaper coverage, was a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

Emma and Oli Jones of JOS Events are taking over Amulet Fairs’ antiques and collectors’ fairs run at the Oswestry Showground by Sheila Jackson for 30 years.

A painting by one of Picasso’s mistresses drew considerable interest at Halls (20% buyer’s premium) of Shrewsbury on February 6.

Coming to the Two Cs two-day Worcestershire Antiques Fair at the Chateau Impney Hotel are ceramics dealers offering porcelain pieces, including Derby, from the 17th to 20th centuries.