Auctioneers

Spink, the specialist London coin and stamp auctioneers, have announced auction revenues of £23.8m including premium for 2007.

The significance of this unassuming oval cabochon emerald ring, is far greater than first appears.

A JUDGE’S ruling over an antique steel knife has challenged the policy of “Let the Buyer Beware” and may affect auctioneers’ cataloguing practices and their terms and conditions.

Knock-on effect of turbulence in money markets is less dramatic than feared at art auctions

The appearance on the market of a piece of ‘A’ mark porcelain at Woolley and Wallis’s Salisbury rooms on June 4 will be an exciting occasion for English porcelain buffs, especially those of an academic persuasion.

PHILLIPS de Pury more than doubled their auction sales total thanks to the booming market for contemporary art and their increasing presence in London.

SOTHEBY’S and Christie’s have launched an unprecedented attack on France’s auction laws in a bid to halt Paris’s decades-long decline as a market force.

This rare medal issued to those involved in the 1916 Easter Rising is up for grabs in the collector’s auction at Plymouth Auction Rooms on February 16.

THE effect of their new salerooms in Rome and New York saw London book specialists Bloomsbury Auctions post a hammer total of £20.4m for 2007.

SILVER sales at the Woolley and Wallis’ Castle Street Salerooms – that last year totalled an impressive £1.9m – are tailored to catch the prevailing winds of the marketplace.

Born and bred in the environs of Birmingham, Sheila Hughes (1937-2006) first began collecting tiles in the early 1970s.

Dukes have negotiated the sale to the nation of two major Pre-Raphaelite paintings. Music by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones and Hamlet and Ophelia by Dante Gabriel Rossetti were found in the Oxfordshire home of the late Jean Preston that also yielded two panels from the San Marco altarpiece by Fra Angelico sold by the Dorchester auctioneers last year for £1.7m.

CHRISTIE’S have maintained their lead over their rivals in wine sales thanks mainly to strong totals posted in Europe.

SOTHEBY’S have released interim headline sales figures for 2007, which show worldwide auction totals up 44 per cent on 2006 at $5.4bn.

JOHN Nicholson’s are the latest ‘provincial’ auctioneers to open a London office.

Bonhams have announced the location of two major new salerooms – in Edinburgh and New York.

Offered in one catalogue, British Art pottery was the main thrust of two sales held by Woolley & Wallis staged at the end of last year.

Drama at Lawrences of Crewkerne on January 17 when this remarkable silver gilt and rock crystal vessel, left behind its estimate of just £100-200 to sell to a buyer in the room at £220,000 (plus 17.5 per cent buyer’s premium).

Sotheby’s have agreed to sponsor Tate Britain’s Duveens Commission, thereby allowing this site-specific sculpture commission to become an annual rather than a biennial event.

Having dramatically grown the auction market for Banksy at their mixed media Vision 21 sales, Bonhams are embarking on a new venture – a dedicated sale of Urban Art.