Keys

Keys is an auction house in Aylsham, Norfolk which was founded in 1953 by Geoffrey Key. Originally a livestock auctioneer, Keys soon began regular furniture sales before adding art and antique sales to its calendar in the 1960s.

In 2019, the auction business split from its estate agency parent company after a management buy-out was led by fine art director Kevin Lines and new managing director David Broom.


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Auction calendar begins revival via the virtual rostrum

27 April 2020

After a month’s hiatus, a number of top-tier regional auction houses are returning to the rostrum to conduct ‘live online’ sales.

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Affordable art: Three works sold for under £800 including a Brangwyn and Urushibara woodcut

20 April 2020

Three modestly valued works selling at regional sales including a Brangwyn and Urushibara woodcut

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Rare early Biggles paperback flies again at Norfolk sale

09 March 2020

An unexpected star turn of a recent Norfolk sale was a job lot of works from the library of the late Ron Fiske of Morningthorpe Manor, an East Anglian collector whose books a Norfolk auction house first started dispersing a few years years ago.

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Affordable art: Three works sold for under £2000 including a Walter Greaves Thames work on paper

10 February 2020

Three modestly valued works selling at regional sales including a Walter Greaves Thames scene.

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Vincennes rarity in Norfolk

16 December 2019

Although catalogued as Sèvres, a porcelain cup and saucer sold by Keys (20% buyer’s premium) of Aylsham for an unexpected £5500 (estimate £100-200) on November 27 was by the factory’s precursor at Vincennes. The saucer had the date letter A for c.1754 and the cup B for c.1755.

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Stannard stands out in saleroom

11 November 2019

Focus on one of only two notable women painters to be associated with the Norwich School.

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Affordable art: Three works sold for under £3250 including a Stanley Spencer sketch

04 November 2019

Three modestly valued works selling at regional sales including a Stanley Spencer sketch.

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Murder tale grips the saleroom

07 October 2019

Account of a double killing in 19th century Norwich heads a look at two-day auction.

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Misty mornings and marshland shine bright at auction

09 September 2019

Complete with 16 tissue-guarded photogravure plates in the original, stylish decorative cloth binding, one of 200 standard copies of Peter Henry Emerson’s famous Marsh Leaves of 1895 was the star turn in a recent Norfolk sale.

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Sully surfaces for a £17,000 sale

19 August 2019

Clock produced by Englishman influential in French horology impresses in Norfolk auction.

Georgian mahogany bookcase

Five lots to watch at auction this week including a Georgian bookcase, Victorian brooch and a portrait of a poet

22 July 2019

With estimates from £200-8000, here are five previews from upcoming sales this week.

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Colin Dexter's Quinn takes top spot

15 July 2019

A Colin Dexter first brought one of the higher bids at Keys (20% buyer’s premium) of Aylsham in its June 13-14 sale.

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Five militaria auction highlights including snuff mull given by 1745 Jacobite rising leader to the guard at his execution

01 July 2019

A snuff mull owned by an executed 1745 Jacobite rising leader and a First World War British tank splatter mask are among five hammer highlights in June auctions.

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Market-fresh rural scene from Norfolk sells at Keys' auction

27 May 2019

A bucolic Norfolk landscape by English artist John Alfred Arnesby-Brown (1866- 1953) emerged as one of the top sellers in an auction dedicated to East Anglian art at local Aylsham saleroom Keys (20% buyer’s premium).

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Affordable art: Three works sold for under £800 including Rowland Hill Irish landscape

27 May 2019

Three modestly valued works selling at regional sales below £800, including an oil on canvas by Rowland Hill of a Donegal bay.

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Frankenstein meets the sleepwalker

13 May 2019

An 1831, third (first illustrated) edition of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a version that not only contained a new introduction but added a new chapter to that famous work, sold for £2800 in a Norfolk sale.

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Dearth of dedicated sales but rich pickings still emerge at multi-discipline auctions

06 May 2019

While dedicated sales of English and Continental ceramics are rarer beasts in the saleroom calendar these days, the traditional mixed-discipline regional sales are a repository for plenty of material from the main factories of the 18th and 19th centuries.

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More Lowestoft at Keys includes rare inkwell

06 May 2019

Keys’ fine sale on July 24-26 will include more examples of porcelain from the local Lowestoft factory.

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Five lots to watch at auction this week including a Lowestoft pug, an undiscovered melody by Elgar and Russian avant-garde art

25 March 2019

With estimates from £150-15,000, here are five previews from upcoming sales this week.

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Lowestoft rarities emerge at Keys in Aylsham

18 March 2019

The March Fine Sale at Keys in Aylsham, the first since a management buyout, includes both a group of Lowestoft rarities and pieces by other factories.

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