UK

UK: A COLLECTION of carte-de-visite photographs and signatures of leading figures of the Confederacy – the South’s leader, Jefferson Davis, and military leaders, Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee, among them – assembled by a Captain Busby of the Calypso, an English blockade runner, was one of more competitively contested lots in this Sussex sale. The collection was finally knocked down at £3000 to Julian Browning.

UK: IT HAS just been announced exclusively to the Antiques Trade Gazette that the Heberden Coin Room at the Ashmolean Museum, which holds one of the most comprehensive collections of coins and medals in the world, has received a very substantial grant to update and rewrite the history of Greek coins from their invention (c.630BC) to Alexander the Great (d.323BC).

A single leaf from a 1455 Gutenberg Bible, in a copy of Alfred E. Newton’s A Noble Fragment of 1921 sold at Bloomsbury Book Auctions on June 8 for £15,000 (+ 15 per cent buyer's premium).

Dan Dare, pilot of the Future, makes his first appearance in the 1950 first issue of Eagle comic, alongside which is a 1953 Dan Dare Book of Jet Planes, with 3-D viewer. These were sold by Comic Book Postal Auctions, London, on June 12 for £248 & £130, respectively (+ 10 per cent buyer's premium).

THE British Antiques and Collectables Awards were presented at a packed ceremony at the Dorchester Hotel in London’s Park Lane on June 19.

UK: ONE rarely gets the chance to auction an auctioneer’s advertisement, at least in ceramic form, but this is what happened when Greenslade Taylor Hunt (15 per cent buyer's premium) offered this matched pair of early 19th century Derby figures, right, at their Taunton salerooms on May 31.

UK: QUALITY items eagerly contested, patchy bidding on low to middle-range entries – a familiar countrywide pattern was evident at Bristol but it was a very unfamiliar piece which led the day.

UK: ONE hundred and seventy five years of independent ownership is an awe-inspiring feat in an antiques market that has changed beyond recognition in the past decade. But this Manchester firm has moved with the times by issuing digital photographs and publishing their catalogue on the Internet.

UK: CHRISTIE'S South Kensington (15/10 per cent buyer’s premium) chalked up another strong result to add to their successful run of mixed- and single-owner Staffordshire pottery auctions with the sale on June 14 of 273 lots from the Oxfordshire dealer Robin Sanders and Sons. A selection that also took in blue and white pearlware and ironstone tablewares but majored on Staffordshire figures, it saw all but 13 lots change hands netting £145,000.

UK: TEA caddies and Tunbridgeware are both hot sellers at present and the combination in the form of this pretty piece, right, was irresistible to half a dozen bidders at the two-day sale held by Rendells (10 per cent buyer’s premium) at Ashburton on May 24 and 25.

UK: A HAMMER total of £94,350 from the 91 pieces to get away among the 109 offerings was an excellent start to the month when the Chester rooms could offer some real quality on a day dedicated to clocks and barometers.

UK: COLLECTORS’ sales are more insulated against market polarisation than most other areas with the niche appeal of the generally more affordable entries attracting greater numbers of private buyers. This sale, with most lots selling under £500, was no exception, with an 88 per cent take-up resulting in a £51,000 total.

UK: THE market for travel posters is particularly strong with Christie's South Kensington frequently holding specialised sales. Another London house, Onslows (15/10 per cent buyer’s premium), of Fulham relished in the strength of posters at their sale at The Carisbrooke Hall, Marble Arch from May 16-17 when this advert, right, for Bournemouth designed by H.G. Gawthron in 1930 went over estimate.

Pictured here is a selection of books sold in auctions in London and New York.

UK: TOPPING Christie’s June 14 English furniture sale at £420,000 was this pair of marble-topped side tables attributed to the Cobb and Vile partnership.

UK: CERAMICS took the top spots at this 1650-lot Cotswolds sale in the form of a pair of mid-19th century Continental majolica stick stands.

UK: ALTHOUGH there were no huge prices among the 416 lots at these Devon rooms, there was success across the wide range of offerings.

UK: MEDALS took the top three slots in this toys, juvenilia and ephemera sale but there was a healthy take-up for toys from collectors and from a couple of Liverpool-based specialist dealers at this 537-lot auction that netted Biddle & Webb around £25,000.

UK: STILL relatively new to the auctioneering world as independent auctioneers, the husband and wife team of S.J. Hales (15 per cent buyer’s premium) have already built up a nationwide reputation for Staffordshire and one that was enhanced at their May 30 sale when they could offer this rare early Samuel Alcock porcellaneous pair of leopard groups.

UK: ONE of numerous full-page woodcut illustrations of bridles, bits, etc. to be found in a 1602 Naples first of Piero Antonio Ferraro’s Cavallo Frenato..., bound in contemporary limp vellum, that sold at £1950 (Traylen) in the Dominic Winter, Swindon (buyer's premium 12.5 per cent) sale.