Warwickshire

Now in its 12th year, the annual 40-dealer National Vintage Fishing Tackle Fair is increasingly attracting visitors, some from Germany, Italy and Denmark, to have their vintage tackle valued by dealers, particularly by Neil Freeman of event sponsors Angling Auctions.

The 1864 Ascot Cup, an impressive Victorian silver racing trophy by Garrard, led proceedings at the three-day sale of the Felix Dennis (1947-2014) collection. It sold at £67,000.

The National Association of Valuers and Auctioneers (NAVA) are calling for entries for the 2014 NAVA Auctioneer of the Year competition, which will take place on September 24 at the Stratford Manor Hotel, Warwickshire.

NAVA have announced their new Autumn Forum will take place on Thursday, September 25.

Warwickshire saleroom Bigwood of Teddington, Stratford-on-Avon sold this mid 19th century whalebone cane for an extraordinary £27,000 at their latest sale.

Steven B. Bruce of Warwickshire have postponed their December sales following the latest in an unfortunate series of events which have disrupted their sales programme.

A portable writing desk once owned by George Eliot is still missing after being stolen from Nuneaton Museum and Art Gallery.

POLICE are urging churches to review their security measures after 20 pieces of valuable silver were stolen in raids on three churches in Warwickshire villages in under a week.

Cheshire fairs organiser Patricia Hier is to sell her company Specialist Glass Fairs to Cambridge-based Paul Bishop of Oxbridge Fairs.

Charterhouse Auctioneers and Valuers have expanded their operations in Sherborne with the addition of an extra saleroom, and new heating and air conditioning in their main saleroom.

FOR some years now the country’s top glass fixture, the next bi-annual National Glass Collectors Fair will be held at the Heritage Motor Centre, near Gaydon in Warwickshire this Sunday, May 9.

Over recent years the market for classic railway engine nameplates has shown itself to be as solid and reliable as the great engines they once adorned. It is 40 years since the Beeching Report condemned a third of the British rail network to the axe and effectively ended the glorious age of steam, but even then there were enthusiasts who cared enough to preserve what they could.

Among the highlights of the collection of the late John Stewart Parry sold by Bruton Knowles at the Tithe Barn, Southam from May 19-23 was this carved and painted wood armorial figure of a greyhound. Standing 211/2in (55cm) high and retaining its original paintwork, the 19th century piece received plenty of interest from the trade before it was knocked down to a London dealer for £3600 (plus 15% buyer’s premium).

SPECIALIST collector markets provided the highlights at Locke & England's Warwickshire salerooms where the 524-lot mixed sale on April 3 (12.5% buyer's premium) included sections catering to special interests in textiles, 20th century pottery and porcelain, toys and games and novelty silver.

“A fine and rare Märklin gauge III spirit fired live steam locomotive with tender and two hand-painted coaches... presented to the Tsar Nicholas II on the occasion of the Russian royal family’s state visit to Paris in 1905...complete with unpublished photograph of the Tsar and Tsarevich in the hotel”.

AN example of every Hornby Dublo model from 1948 until the Liverpool factory went out of business in 1964 will come for up auction as a single collection at Barry Potter Auctions in Rugby on July 18.

POLICE are casting their net farther afield in the hope of recapturing a missing mermaid, and the thieves who stole her.

The value of toy trains is rarely tied to world events, but this Märklin 00 gauge replica of a London Midland and Scottish railway locomotive was manufactured by the German toy firm for export to Britain in 1938.