Bonhams

“WE will make a name for ourselves and Australia tomorrow.” This was how Captain Shout fired up his band of troops the night before the assault at Gallipoli in the First World War.

More than two decades since the first sale of golfing memorabilia, this once-booming niche market stands at an important crossroads.

M1, one of the most sought-after UK registration numbers, set a new world record price for a car number plate when it sold for £300,000 at Bonhams’ Goodwood Festival of Speed sale of Sports, Competition and Collectors’ Motor Cars and Automobilia on July 7.

BONHAMS have brokered a last-minute deal to save the unrivalled Jonathan Minns Collection of Industrial Archaeological Artefacts from being split up.

CAPTAIN Thomas Bowrey’s principal claim to fame has been as the author of a 1701 English-Malay dictionary. Despite criticism of its clumsy errors, eccentricities of transliteration and quaint dialogues, this remained a standard reference for over 100 years.

IT was a case of sweet and sour as two headline-grabbing London auctions came to an end before a bid could be raised last week.

WHAT'S up Down Under? The very day Christie’s announce that they are downsizing in Australia by ceasing to hold sales there, Bonhams and Goodman say they are expanding operations.

Stephen and Iona Joseph began collecting and dealing in primitive animal portraits more than 30 years ago and as Iona Antiques were well-known exhibitors at top antiques fairs both here, where they were regulars at Grosvenor House, and in the United States. However, since Stephen Joseph died last year his wife has decided to stop dealing and is selling her collection at Bonhams on March 21.

AFfter three auctions and more than 1200 lots devoted to porcelain from one factory one might have thought there was a chance buyers would have tired of the Zorensky collection of Worcester porcelain. Not so.

FROM a Hampshire cupboard find to “missing link” scientific discovery of a generation. A manuscript minute book kept by Robert Hooke during his years as Secretary to the Royal Society has rapidly and rightly been elevated to scientific sacred relic and national treasure.

BONHAMS have won a top award from Euromoney magazine for their client services.

Two fine lots of 17th century English pewter greeted New Year bidders in the country.

BY IVAN MACQUISTENROBERT Brooks has been nailing his colours to the mast in more ways than one in the past week.

LVMH have sold their 49.9 per cent shareholding in auction house Bonhams 1793 back to Bonhams.

IT was a family occasion on Friday June 9 at Bonhams when chairman Robert Brooks invited his father Bill to unveil a plaque for the lecture theatre in their Bond Street HQ in front of a small gathering of family members and senior staff from the auction house.

ENGLISH POTTERY SALESTHE products of the Staffordshire potteries from blue-printed tablewares to cottage chimney ornaments and Toby jugs to ironstone services, were the subject of a 356-lot sale at Bonhams’ Knightsbridge (20/12% buyer’s premium) back on May 11.

PERHAPS the rarest of all Beswick’s ouput is the Spirit of Whitfield.

Classic English furniture continues to bring good prices at auction providing the quality is there – and this Regency sofa table, right, certainly filled that requirement when it was offered at the March 3 sale in Cornwall held by Bonhams Par (17.5% buyer’s premium).

Bonhams Bond StreetCLASSICAL sculpture also dominated Bonhams wide-ranging mixed-owner sale on April 21. Led by the Hever nymph and satyr, discussed on page 13, Roman marbles accounted for eight of the ten highest prices.

THE piece with star billing at Bonhams’ April 21 Antiquities auction was the dramatic white marble group, shown here, even meriting its own separate hardback catalogue.