West Midlands

Vetted fair may be compact in scale but still packs a punch

If horology is your passion then two events coming up will prove timely.

A police ledger sold more than triple its top estimate featured original mug shots and criminal records relating to 500 people including a woman accused of plotting to kill Prime Minister David Lloyd George in 1917.

Mike Collins, the popular director of Sherman & Waterman which runs the weekly antiques markets in Covent Garden and Spitalfields – two of the busiest and best known markets in London – is as ebullient as ever.

Thousands of visitors are expected to descend on the NEC in Birmingham next month for one of country’s larger vetted antiques and fine art fairs.

Showcase for Cotswolds dealers and guests takes place at arts and antiques exhibitions hub

Literally the highlight of Halls’ (23% buyer’s premium) Autumn Sale was a hall lantern demonstrating showy high Victorian taste at its most confident.

Grade II-listed manor house Burton Court near Leominster, Herefordshire, is the setting for Antiques in Tents’ next fair on Friday and Saturday, October 14-15, with 50 dealers.

Fairs are often good places to celebrity-spot and one of these sighted at the Ludlow fair was the veteran Led Zeppelin rock great, Robert Plant.

The series of novelty ‘book’ hip flasks made by James Dixon & Co of Sheffield c.1900-10 are always popular collectables.

This copy of 'Hansel and Gretel', 1925, with 12 tipped-in colour plates by the Danish artist Kay Nielsen (1886-1957), is one of 600 numbered copies (numbered 16) signed by the artist, in the original publisher’s pictorial cloth.

Proof that a traditional piece of furniture can still bring a traditional price, this mid-18th century oak tridarn went seven times above estimate at the Trevanion (20% buyer’s premium) auction in Shropshire.

The Silver, Coins & Medals auction at Fellows in Birmingham on September 13 will include this garniture of three George V silver pedestal bowls with lion and serpent embellishments. estimated at £1500-2500.

Organised by Tricorn Fairs, the biannual Bristol Fine Antique Arms Fair returns on Sunday, September 11, at a new venue: the Aztec West Hotel and Spa.

Aboriginal shields come in two basic types: broad shields used for deflecting projectiles and the narrow, compact parrying shields used in close contact fighting.

Two sporting ‘firsts’ are being marked by lots coming up in separate auctions this month.

Percy Thomas Tibbles, born in Hampstead, London, in 1881, was destined to become famous for cutting women in half.

Priced on the cover at nine pence, it was a British copy of a Marvel comic of 1983, one that saw the first appearance of the mighty Thor, that led the bidding at £6300 in the comics section of a July 21-22 sale held by Fieldings (24% buyer’s premium).

This cased pair of English flintlock duelling pistols by Joseph Gulley, London, c.1810-15, sold for £8600 at Halls (20/12% buyer’s premium) in a timed online sale that ended on August 2.

A brand-new building on the Dodwell Trading Estate outside Stratford-upon- Avon is the home of the recently opened Top Dog Antiques.