West Yorkshire

SOME weeks ago, I reported that preparations were going well for Robert Bailey’s 54th annual Northern Antiques Fair which this year leaves Harrogate and moves to, arguably, the most prestigious venue in the county, Harewood House, near Leeds, stately home of Lord and Lady Harewood.

FOLLOWING the sale of a Charlotte Rhead wall plate for an unexpected £2900 in October last year, the Ilkley, West Yorkshire salerooms of Andrew Hartley received another rare design by the industrial ceramicist for their sale of August 11-12.

AS all but the very top end of the furniture market continues to stagnate, Andrew Hartley (10% buyer's premium) can take some solace in the solid private client base it has built up for its regular consignments of Royal Worcester porcelain.

THE March 5 sale at Dee Atkinson & Harrison's (10% buyer's premium) West Yorkshire saleroom was the first antiques offering of the year and, after an 83 per cent selling rate on nearly 700 lots, the auctioneers took encouragement from the way the market seemed to be picking up, with furniture, at last, edging out of the doldrums.

IS there currently a more buoyant sector of the ceramics market than Beswick animals? Malcolm's No. 1 Auctioneers (12.5% buyer's premium) March 29 sale, held at Trustees Hall, Boston Spa, attracted what Malcolm Dowson estimated to be his largest ever attendance in over 20 years of auctioneering. The primary reason? A private collection of Beswick horse figures entered without reserve by a local resident who has decided to live in Spain.

It seems that in terms of arriving in numbers after none has been seen for ages, novelty lighthouse cocktail shakers are to Yorkshire what No. 9 buses are to central London. In Antiques Trade Gazette No.1589 dated May 17 we illustrated just such a silver-plated shaker which took £1250 at Andrew Hartley’s Ilkley, West Yorkshire sale on April 9-10.

AUCTIONEER Andrew Hartley has been holding biannual toy sales for a decade but the last few years has seen them grow in strength. Totals have risen steadily from around £40,000 several years ago to the £66,000 mark achieved at their most recent 650-lot sale which boasted a 95 per cent take-up.

Ilkley rooms start the new year at the double UK: AGAINST a widely reported background of a slow start to the year, these West Yorkshire auctioneers got off to such a busy start that the first of their six annual one-day sales spilled over into a two-day event.