News

THE race for auction supremacy on the Internet took yet another turn last week when Sotheby’s announced a long term alliance with the best known name in e-commerce, amazon.com.

UK: TONY BANKS MP and former ministers Kenneth Baker and Peter Brooke were among those registering their interests at a sale of political commemoratives held by Special Auction Services on June 13 at the Courtyard Hotel, Padworth.

HOPE was rekindled last week that a last-minute change of heart in Europe could kill off the imposition of the artists resale levy, droit de suite, in the UK.

UK: ONE OF THE curious features of the English class system was the availability of similar sporting pastimes to all men by their birthright. Royalty played real tennis, for instance, while impecunious prisoners, it seems, made do with rackets.

UK: PICTURED here is one of the best examples of English cameo glass to go under the hammer for many years.

UK: ONE of the bargains of the year must be the British Library’s purchase of the Letters of the Earl of Essex to Elizabeth I, which sold at Phillips on June 11 for a low-estimate £150,000 plus premium.

UK: A DEALER’S £25 purchase at an antiques fair is likely to bring him a substantial windfall after being identified as a rare copper etching plate by Lucas van Leyden, the 16th century Old Master.