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Kazari: Decoration and Display in Japan: 15th-19th Centuries, edited by Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere, published by The British Museum Press. ISBN 0714126365 £24.99sb

Garden Antiques: How to Source & Identify, by Rupert van der Werff and Jackie Rees, published by Miller’s. ISBN 1840007133 £15.99hb

FAMILY deaths and property downsizings still account for the majority of goods sold at auction, but lifestyle options are increasingly a factor. At Andrew Hartley’s sale the decision by a local vendor to part with her Chiparus figure to pay for an extension on her new home was almost as cutting edge as the Yorkshire man who ditched this collection of modern glass, some shown left, by Lancashire master blower John Ditchfield to pay for a holiday in the Far East.

This 19th century George Jones majolica game pie dish and cover led the way at Lawrences (11% buyer’s premium) three-day event, held at their rooms in Bletchingley between February 4 and 6.

Here’s something you’re unlikely to see much this century, lifesize or otherwise: a cap-wearing boy on a go-kart, commonly known to collectors of Matchbox toys as a Soapbox Racer. It’s the cover lot of Vectis Auction Group’s Matchbox Magic 8 sale, which takes place next week at the Community Hall in Buckingham.

The doom and gloom experienced in many provincial rooms prior to Christmas was nowhere to be seen in these Sussex rooms, who, despite the snowy conditions, took a respectable hammer total just shy of £170,000.

Masterpieces of Art Nouveau Furniture: The Majorelle Catalogue c.1910, edited by Flora Klickmann, published by Dover Books, New York, and distributed in the UK by David & Charles Ltd. ISBN 0486421139. £16.95sb

A company condemned by the Information Commissioner for misleading businesses into paying unnecessary fees for registering under the Data Protection Act is still targeting antique dealers across the country.

LAST month, 14 notebooks containing the gruesome diaries of Anatole Deibler, France’s last public executioner, were sold in Paris at Beaussant-Lefèvre (17.94% buyer’s premium) for €85,000 (£55,600).

UK: AN educational charity in Derbyshire is offering a substantial reward for information leading to the safe return of the mechanism and dial of a longcase clock.

KENSINGTON-based English porcelain specialist Simon Spero is known internationally for the selling exhibitions at his gallery at 109 Kensington Church Street, London W8, and this month he holds one with a guaranteed appeal.

ST JAMES’S sculpture dealer Robert Bowman will be on duty at Maastricht again this year, and at the top fair he will be showing the top names of 19th and 20th century bronzes, such as Rodin and Degas.

Film poster vendor adds to exclusivity of sale by destroying second copy: COLLECTORS have reacted with outrage and disbelief to a statement from the vendors of an apparently unique film poster that a second copy had been deliberately destroyed to protect the sale’s exclusivity.

The annual ski poster sale at Christie’s South Kensington (17.5/10% buyer’s premium), timed as usual to coincide with the winter sports season, jumped into action earlier this month. The auctioneers’ 273-lot offering on February 13 took in all the main long-established European resorts plus some from further afield, and attracted its usual crowd of aficionados in person or on the phone.

APART from sporadic themed sales held by provincial auctioneers, Camard’s main rival on the French poster auction scene is the Paris-based dealer Frédéric Lozada, who has instituted regular 1000-lot sales in Versailles (the one in late October brought over £250,000) and, most recently, in Lille, where he offered 1120 lots under the Wattebled hammer on December 11-12.

THE majolica market has long been underpinned by American collectors and on April 4-5 Indiana-based Michael Strawser will be selling British, American and Continental pieces at the Alderfer Auction Center in Hatfield Pennsylvania.

A Ptolemaic world map from the Nuremburg Chronicle was sold for £12,000 (£7500) as part of a December 12 sale of maps and prints held by Swann, while bid to $6000 (£3750) was the Map to illustrate Prince Maximilien of Wied’s Travels in the Interior of North America reproduced right.

FOR nigh on a decade ceramics dealer Andrew Dando’s Spring exhibition, Animal Dando & Friends, has been a West Country institution, but since the firm moved from their long-time premises in Bath to Wiltshire last September many customers wondered if the show would go on.

THESE specialist toy and train auctioneers, Barry Potter, must be one of the only, if not the only, ones to set up mini-fairs by allowing dealers to sell from stands at the back of the saleroom.

Decanters 1760-1930 by David Leigh, published by Shire Publications. ISBN 0747805482 £4.99sb