UK

Silver spirit labels (‘Holland’ refers to Dutch Gin) are not quite two a penny, but they are among the cheapest drinking trinkets available.

Having dispersed the collection of Sir John Gielgud early last month Sotheby’s (20/15/10% buyer’s premium) went on to offer that of his good friend, fellow thespian and fellow knight of the realm, the late Sir Ralph Richardson, on April 27.

UK: AN extraordinary breakdown in communication between Earls Court and Olympia, owners of the famous Olympia Fine Art and Antiques Fair, and London organiser of one-day fairs Matthew Adams resulted in Adams Antiques Fairs losing an Olympia slot with no written notice or confirmation.

UK: A dozen telephone lines led to the Tithe Barn salerooms of Bruton Knowles, near Cheltenham on April 26, all contesting the finest lot of period satinwood in the provinces this year.

UK: This elegant 4ft 3in (1.3m) wide early Georgian mahogany two-door commode stole the show at Phillips’ furniture sale in London on Tuesday, April 24, when it sold for £500,000 to London dealers Jeremy Ltd.

UK: An ancient Celtic gold ornament provided the high point of Christie’s South Kensington’s Antiquities sale last week when it was purchased for £1m by London’s British Museum, to whom it was on loan from 1993 to 2000.

Heavy snow across Staffordshire on the morning of this 800-lot dispersal did not deter buyers, with the auctioneers noticing a marked increase in the usual number of phone bids.

GOOD stock furniture was the strength of this 289-lot, £130,000 Halls Shropshire sale on March 9 where the top price was taken by a c.1775 two-tier mahogany dumbwaiter.

UK: THE Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge is celebrating a £425,000 Lottery windfall that has helped it acquire a stunning coin collection.

Letters, manuscripts and photographs from many of Britain’s most celebrated artists are to form a new art research library that will be open to the public at Tate Britain.

Furniture from British India and Ceylon: A Catalogue of the Collections in the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Peabody Essex Museum, by Amin Jaffer

FOR 20 of its 27 years the annual Harrogate Antique and Fine Art Fair has been organised by West Country-based Louise Walker but with 80 exhibitors this year’s staging from May 3 to 6 is the biggest so far.

UK: Some fishermen claim that pike have an appetite for human flesh – the elderly members of a crown green bowling club in Warrington say this stuffed and mounted 201b monster has been responsible for several fatalities among their anoraked colleagues in recent years.

UK: A key feature of the Bloomsbury Book Auctions sale of April 5 was a private collection of the works of A.A. Milne.

UK: THE V&A have announced that they are to open their new British Galleries 1500-1900 on November 22.

UK: One of this year’s most stunning finds, a group of four rare Sèvres Etruscan red ground dessert plates from the Prince Napoleon Service, 1854-6, offered at Mellors and Kirk, Nottingham, on April 5.

UK: Sworders, Stansted: A mammoth 1200 lots made up the March dispersal by the Essex auctioneers and there were some real quality pieces among them, both in the ceramics and the furniture.

UK: MARCH was a busy month in London and successful with it. On the 15th, Spink (15 per cent buyer’s premium) sold the definitive collection of Tudor silver coins formed over several decades by Roger Shuttlewood.

UK: ARTS Minister Alan Howarth has become increasingly active in placing temporary bans on the export of works of art

Few businesses can boast the sort of charitable contributions of Tomlinson Antiques, the furniture wholesaler of Tockwith, North Yorkshire.