News

UK: BONHAMS and Brooks are to close their Manchester saleroom, compress departments in London and make 15 staff redundant in the first major shake-up since the two companies merged in September.

UK: THE Export Review Committee, which assesses whether outstanding works of art should be allowed to leave the country, has helped six such pieces stay in Britain in the past year.

UK: IF you stood fuming on the cocktail party sidelines over the festive season as your wife/husband got on famously with a lecherous member of the opposite sex, then something like this oversized (18in) metal syringe and vial which appeared at Christie's South Kensington on December 12, would have come in rather useful.

YAHOO have decided to ban sales of Nazi memorabilia and other items promoting racism from their Website from January 10.

USA: A 137-lot collection of marine archaeological artefacts salvaged by the company Arqueonautas from seven wrecks on the reefs of the Cape Verde Islands rounded off Sotheby’s horological and scientific auction on December 19.

FRANCE: Following a two-year investigation, French police have rounded up a gypsy gang responsible for hundreds of thefts from châteaux and private homes, many in Normandy and the Paris area.

THE flooded Welsh Marches in November didn’t augur well for sales but the Herefordshire auctioneers even managed to find a buyer for a highly unseasonal garden seat.