News

A TAKE-UP of 570 lots of the 600 on offer at Clarke Gammon– mainly from a local deceased estate – and a grand total of £75,000 revealed a market in buoyant mood at Guildford on 11 September where the best of a number of highlights answered the current demand for early textiles.

The imminent cessation of all sales – including wine – at Sotheby’s Chicago has left a gap in the Mid-West market that newly-established wine auctioneers Edward Roberts International are keen to fill. Brainchild of Edward Robert Brooks, the much-travelled head of Christie’s and the short-lived Phillips’ North American wine departments, Edward Roberts will mount their first live sale of fine and rare wines at The Union League Club of Chicago on Saturday, November 10.

“For the really top things there’s no shortage of buyers, but the middle ground is weaker,” affirmed Stephen Mould of Sotheby’s wine department. “If you’ve got large parcels that depend on the trade, then bidders are more cautious. But if you’ve got small quantities of the finest things there are plenty of private buyers prepared to pay good money.”

MASTERING search engines is the key to gaining better exposure on the Internet, according to one firm who have started offering an alternative to signing up to major portal sites.

HOPES of finalising a draft of proposals for developing the new Home Office database for beating art crime by the beginning of October have not been realised. It now appears that it will be at least another two months before the proposals can be submitted to the parliamentary committee looking into them for assessment.

Jean-Vital Remy was one of the most determined and assiduous Dinky toy collectors. Over a relatively short space of time – around 15 years from the mid-1980s – this Belgian enthusiast built up an enormous assemblage of French and English Dinkys spanning the entire production period. His desire for comprehensiveness and determination to acquire pieces with unusual colour or design variations made him a formidable adversary when it came to buying, whether at auctions or in shops or fairs.

THIS week sees the announcement of two new auction houses for the West Midlands, the first based in Stourbridge, near Birmingham, the second in Newport, Shropshire.