Auctioneers

Kingham & Orme’s (23% buyer’s premium) first-ever specialist auction of Jewellery & Watches took place on February 19 with just over 200 lots.

This particular form of English delft puzzle jug, with its distinctive knopped neck, seems to be peculiar to the second half of the 17th century.

It is often said there is a strict hierarchy for the prices of game bird pictures by the great ornithological artist Archibald Thorburn (1860-1935).

The popularity of the tiara, that reached its peak in the decades before the onset of the First World War when diamonds from South Africa were in plentiful supply, has fluctuated across the 20th century in line with prosperity and fashion.

Tennants offered a well-received 70-lot sale dedicated to views mostly of Yorkshire from a private collection last month.

A recent Fine Jewellery sale at Fellows (23% buyer’s premium) in Birmingham included an unusual Victorian necklace.

Dawsons’ (23% buyer’s premium) dedicated Jewellery, Watches & Silver auction in Maidenhead on March 11 included two unusual signed pieces by flavour-of-the-month Andrew Grima (1921-2007).

Oil bought by the vendor directly from the artist Lucy Harwood features a still-life on the reverse

Sotheby’s sold the collection of Patricia Knatchbull, 2nd Countess Mountbatten of Burma at the end of last month.

Better late than never, Woolley & Wallis will get to hold its January jewellery sale this month – on April 29.

Depiction of one McNeill sister sets a record while portrait of her sibling also appears at another auction

Among the highlights of last week’s Islamic and Indian art sales in London was this late Safavid portrait of a mercenary in the Persian army painted in the cosmopolitan city of Isfahan c.1680-90.

Lee Young, Asian specialist and BBC Antiques Roadshow expert, has become the new owner of Frome saleroom Dore & Rees. He left his role as managing director at Duke’s last week.

The record for a British coin has been broken again with the sale at Heritage Auctions in Dallas of an Edward VIII proof pattern £5 for $1.9m (£1.39m).

“I joined up as a youngster for a bit of fun, but it didn’t turn out like that. We were young men made old before our time.”

With hindsight, the boast made by the Flying Steam Company – 'To China in Twenty-Four Hours Certain' – was a tad ambitious.

A note penned in December 1963 by Mary Elizabeth Smith from The Mendips, Menlove Avenue, Liverpool, to a Miss V Stoker of 54 Pirton Road, Hitchin, sold for £1300 to a UK online bidder at Wolverhampton saleroom Cuttlestones (17.5% buyer’s premium) on March 19.