News

UK: GOLFING enthusiasts flocked to the six-monthly sale of items relating to the game – a field pioneered at Chester – where 500 lots from clubs to balls, programmes to ceramics and miscellaneous emphemera such as advertising merchandise, were offered.

American connection revolutionises a jug’s prospects UK: LOOKING at current trends in the furniture market, auctioneer Patrick Toynbee remarked on the reluctance among buyers for “run of the mill” pieces, with the preference now being for high-quality attractive pieces.

UK: ONE of a group of seven newspapers, plus a printed edict, issued in March 1917, at the outbreak of the Russian revolution, which sold for £400 (Hanson). They were apparently distributed free in the streets of Petrograd and these copies were acquired by Gertrude Hitchcock, who was there working for a British engineering company at the time.

UK: THE first serious outbreak of Hobbits of 2001 occurred in Hamptons’ Godalming salerooms on February 15, when a first edition set of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, the three volumes of 1955-56 in first issue dust wrappers with some slight discolouration and chipping, sold at £11,000.

UK: THERE was no doubting the piece that drew major buyers to this event at St Barnabas Church hall – the flamboyant early 19th century heraldic Italian table.

UK: THE market for commemorative ceramics proved to be strong at the Manchester rooms of Capes Dunn when two 1911 Royal Doulton beakers marking the Coronation of King George V and Queen Mary were offered.

US: AN IZANNAH WALKER doll from Rhode Island was the star turn in a Toys & Collectables sale held on December 9 in the Bolton (Massachusetts) rooms of Skinners and brought a bid of $21,000 (£14,480). Made around 1870, the 18in (46cm) tall doll illustrated right, wearing a grey-green plaid dress of silk taffeta, and with a pair of period ice skates with red leather straps strung over her shoulder, has an oil painted cloth body – even the hands and face are made of painted cloth.