UK

UK: Wellington chests remain a steady favourite in the middle-price range of furniture, particularly when they come as a pair as at this Bedford sale.

UK: A 1632 MANUSCRIPT plan by Johan Williams of the Maniera de Monk Lytons, alias Kentwell... in the Suffolk parish of Melford, executed in ink and watercolours and including details of Kentwell Hall and Melford church, sold for £2000, in this East Anglian sale, and other local lots included a three-year run of the Norwich Mercury (1801-04) at £500 and A.H. Patterson’s Broadland Scribblings of 1892, at £480.

UK: THE FORMER Arpad Plesch copy of Sir Joseph Hooker’s 1855, first edition of Illustrations of Himalayan Plants which was sold for £19,500 in this Nottingham sale was featured in last week’s Antiques Trade Gazette (Issue No. 1480), but there were a few other interesting results in the natural history section.

UK: ILLUSTRATED here are three more selections from the recent sale of the Ronald Segal Collection at Sotheby's English Literature & History sale held on December 14.

UK: AN 18TH CENTURY map of the home town, bottom right, and an embarassing moment at the ball for Cinderella, top right, are my two illustrated highlights from this Berkshire sale, but a few other things from the 40 book and map lots that were tacked onto the end of a picture sale are described below.

In a recent issue some attempt was made to get away from only reporting past auction sales by noting coins from trade fixed price lists. To develop this theme further we return to auction sales but with a difference, this time to preview a few lots from Spink’s sale of April 11 in London.

UK: I THINK I am right in saying that no James Bond book, at least no uninscribed copy, has ever before reached five figures at auction, but the Dominic Winter sale of March 7 added that required extra nought when an absolutely splendid copy of Ian Fleming’s first Bond spy story, Casino Royale of 1953, was bid up to £11,400. There was stiff competition from several London dealers, but in the end it went to Bromlea & Jonkers.

UK: IN THE original greyish purple ribbed and blind-stamped cloth bindings, this 1847 first edition of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre brought a bid of £30,000 from an American dealer, who may or may not have been that same, un-named West Coast dealer who bought some of the Jane Austens described above, and who also paid £7000 for a three vol. 1853 first of Charlotte’s Villette in the original greyish-olive morocco cloth.

UK: THE downward spiral of the euro against sterling since the single currency was launched has been a problem for auctioneers, particularly in the South, who could once count on French, Italian and Spanish dealers keeping the lower and middle ranges of the market buoyant, so there was naturally some satisfaction for these Devon auctioneers to see a little of the old peseta power in February.

UK: CHANCELLOR Gordon Brown’s change in VAT policy for museums should safeguard free entry where it already exists.

UK: HEAVY snow on the morning of this 360-lot dispersal in Northumberland resulted in an influx of phone bids and a distinct lack of private buyers. However, bidding was competitive enough to bring a total of around £50,000 exceeding Mr Dudgeon’s expectations.

Filippo Bonanni’s Gabinetto Armonico of 1723 will be familiar to most lovers of old musical instruments in the form of a Dover reprint of the 1960s, but the engraved plate reproduced above is one of 152 from the Fort Augustus copy of the real thing, bound in contemporary mottled calf gilt, which sold at £3800 to Bruce Marshall.

UK: THE title page of a 1613, first complete edition of Galileo Galilei’s Istoria e Dimostrazioni..., containing his observations on the sunspots and his discoveries relating to the rotation of the sun – the first to contain Scheiner’s letters to Welser – which, bound in contemporary vellum, made £4500 (Quaritch) as an ex-Fort Augustus lot.

UK: Sotheby’s are hoping one of the most important watercolours by J.M.W. Turner to come to the rostrum will smash all previous auction records for the artist when it comes under the hammer in London on June 14.

UK: FRESH on the market, reasonably estimated and of undoubted quality – but three silver dessert baskets offered at Somerset still provided a surprise when, as has happened elsewhere, the ‘right’ piece of silver exceeds all expectations.

UK: IN A richly gilt and inlaid green morocco binding by Bayntun Rivière, a copy of the 1894 Kelmscott edition of Swinburne’s Atalanta in Calydon – an ex-Beeleigh Abbey lot with William Foyle’s red morocco bookplate – was sold at £1700 (Shapero).

UK: THIS 1564 Venetian edition of Dante’s Divina Commedia was the first to incorporate the commentaries of both Landino and Vellutello, which, printed in roman type, surround the italic setting of Dante’s text.

UK: NEW and old technology were both part of a successful Saturday event for the Surrey auctioneers.

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.

UK: COINCIDING with the recent recovery of Donald Campbell’s boat from Coniston Water, photographs and ephemera relating to Campbell’s famous father Sir Malcolm attracted extra interest at this Devon sale.