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WITH a name like the Old Picture Palace, the former cinema in Matlock that is the newly acquired saleroom of the Derby auctioneers Bamfords (15% buyer’s premium) should be the sort of venue where the more traditional end of the art market should feel at home.

FOR some years now, the Thames Valley Antique Dealers Association has held two fairs a year, the autumn one at Radley College, Oxford and, for the past six years, the spring one at Reading Bluecoat School, Sonning-on-Thames, Berkshire. The TVADA Spring Antiques Fair will take place at Reading Bluecoat from April 2 to 4 with a record 36 members taking stands.

THE Gloucestershire town of Tetbury is currently the boom city of the antiques trade. In addition to a host of antiques shops it has recently become known for its antiques centres, especially Top Banana who have two centres in the town.

MOVING shop when leases expire, or for other reasons, is always stressful, but some moves are less traumatic than others.

THE massive catalogue of Küncker of Osnabrück (27.22/23 buyer’s premium) devoted to Classical, Byzantine and Islamic coins has fallen onto my desk.

ANTIQUES shops come and go (and plenty have gone in recent years) but some seem to trade on forever. It is 100 years since this little girl was photographed outside the bookshop at 7-8 Union Street, Brighton, right, where Dermot and Jill Palmer are now preparing to mark their 35th anniversary dealing in antiques from the premises.

A NEW Thursday antique and collectors market will open in mid-May at Spitalfields, Commercial Road, London E1, run by Sherman & Waterman who already have markets in Covent Garden and Portobello Road.