News

UK: BOXLOCK shotguns are the most common of British fowling firearms and those with bolt-actions are certainly not unusual, but this particular model, left, aroused great interest at Weller and Dufty’s (15 per cent premium) arms and armour auction in Birmingham on March 14.

UK: THE current strength of the silver market for unusual pieces has been discussed in theAntiques Trade Gazette of recent weeks and the Cambridge auctioneers two-day sale showed that the trend is no different in East Anglia.

UK: PEOPLE are rightly reluctant to travel to foot-and-mouth infected countryside, and although the local area was free from the disease, the February sale at Devon-based S.J. Hales was attended by just 25 bidders in the room.

UK: THE Cotswolds seems the natural environment for oak dressers and a couple were on offer here.

In a beautifully preserved contemporary, and possibly Austrian binding of blind-stamped calf with brass fittings, this copy of Erhard Ratdolt’s 1482, first printing of Euclid’s Elementa, shows some slight waterstaining to the lower margins, but it remains one of the largest and freshest copies in existence – taller than even the Doheny, Honeyman-Garden and Haskell F. Norman copies.

US: WILLIAM Faulkner’s books have been selling very well in recent times, and a January 25 sale held by Pacific Auction Galleries saw bids of $1300 (£895) for a first trade edition of The Hamlet, 1940, in a very bright jacket, and $2500 (£1725) for a copy of one of his earlier works, Mosquitoes of 1927, again in a jacket. However, while modern firsts overall certainly did well at this sale, the day’s top lot was a 19th century manuscript of American historical interest.

Buyers who brave harsh winter weather warm to finer furniture UK: THE name of Henry Bone RA (1755-1834) which featured in London's first sale of portrait miniatures this year, was also a feature of the wider ranging sale held by James Adam in Dublin on February 28.