West Midlands

A rare copy of the earliest-known depiction of a book auction emerged for sale in Gloucestershire at the end of last month.

Depiction of actor is one of the more traditional offerings at fair set to broaden its horizons.

Disbound, but complete and still in the original covers, an 1830 first of William North’s Correct Account of all the Cricket Matches Played by the Nottingham Old Cricket Club from 1771 to 1829 came into bat in a recent Staffordshire sale with an estimate of just £50-100, but went on to score £6400 online via thesaleroom.com.

A Henry Clay polychrome tea caddy, c.1785, in the manner of Robert Adam is among the pieces lent by dealer Mark Goodger of Hampton Antiques to be featured in Compton Verney Art Gallery’s exhibition A Tea Journey: From the mountains to the table.

The Postcard Traders Association stages a special loan show of classic and collectable postcards during Art & Antiques For Everyone (July 18-21 at the NEC, Birmingham).

The recent sale of a single-owner collection of Moorcroft pottery by Kingham & Orme in Evesham demonstrated two distinct faces of the Staffordshire factory.

No good library of British art pottery literature is complete without a copy of Paul Atterbury’s 'Moorcroft'. The jacket illustration alone with its myriad tube-lined miniatures in a bewildering range of forms and patterns is particularly memorable. More than one collector has attempted to emulate the beguiling display.

Eardley Norton, who is listed at 49 St John’s Street, Clerkenwell between 1762- 94, enjoyed a reputation as a skilled mechanic and the maker of complex timepieces, sometimes with musical and astronomical movements.

Organisers report that all of their events are fully booked as far ahead as October this year

B2B Events’ Malvern Antiques and Collectors’ Fair at the Three Counties Showground runs tri-annually, with the next on Sunday, June 23 – different timing to the organisers’ Malvern flea markets held nine times a year at the showground.

Characteristic etching is best-seller in appealing single-owner mix of works on paper.

After more than 50 years as a designer for international stamps and banknotes printer Waterlow & Sons, Leonard Douglas Fryer (1891-1965) retired to enjoyable obscurity at his home in Ilford.

Almost wholly reliant on slavery, the tobacco industry was the subtle target of British Abolitionists 50 years before Britain outlawed slavery and nearly a century before the American Civil War.

Catalogued as ‘Art Nouveau… manner of Charlotte Rhead’, this pair of tube-lined tiles went at 10 times the estimate at Trevanion & Dean’s (17.5% buyer’s premium) sale in Whitchurch.

Discoloured, stained and in a crudely restored old binding, a scarce hunting work of 1704 was sold for a much higher than expected £1400 at a recent Hansons (20% buyer’s premium) sale.