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GLASGOW in the 18th century was a shadow of the powerhouse it was to become during the Industrial Revolution. In the mid-18th century, when the primary source of wealth on the Clyde was trade in tobacco, rum and sugar from the New World, the population stood at a modest 17,500, enough to support only a handful of goldsmiths and silversmiths.

WHILE recent months have seen some softening in the majolica market as a whole, scarce pieces by good makers continue to attract bids close to those they did three or four years ago. Pictured right is one of George Jones’ best-known Stilton dish designs, modelled as a thatched bee skep on a rustic base of mottled greens and browns that also includes a registration lozenge for 1872.

TOP read in a May 20 sale held by Freemans of Philadelphia was one of 90 sets of the 37-vol. ‘Memorial’ edition of the writings of Mark Twain published by Harpers in 1929, which, in original three-quarter crushed green levant morocco gilt and marbled boards, sold at $12,000 (£6820).

IF the Toguri collection’s £600,000 black and white baluster vase was a masterpiece of Cizhou art, the size, detail and ingenious use of the stone’s natural inclusions make this monumental black and grey water buffalo, offered in Sotheby’s Bond Street’s 127-lot mixed owner outing on June 9, a master class in jade carving.

OVER the years, the collaboration between Sotheby’s Sussex and the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust has done much to fill in the gaps left by the lack of detailed company records of Coalbrookdale furniture, and the May sale at Billingshurst, which featured 86 lots amassed over a number of years by a dealer/collector, offered another opportunity to assess the market.

RARELY one to miss a commercial opportunity, from pub jugs to caviar pots, Henry Doulton’s potworks in Lambeth produced stoneware advertising novelties for many local businesses. There are, for example, a series of paperweights made for the Thames boat people carrying the names of the companies who commissioned them as gifts for their best clients.

THIS wucai dragon jardinière, third right, entered together with three routine pieces of 17th and 18th century Chinese blue and white (pictured with it), with pre-sale hopes of £900-1300, proved a sleeper and was the focus of an intense bidding battle between Hong Kong, Taiwanese and mainland Chinese dealers at Sotheby’s Olympia’s 387-lot outing on June 10.

THE quality of the Salisbury sales held by Woolley & Wallis (15% buyer’s premium) has been previously mentioned in these pages of late and the 470-lot May 10 event was a case in point. Billed as a furniture, clocks and works of art sale, there were highlights across the sections, including a William IV rosewood chaise longue with a wonderful scroll end at £3200 and a 10 1/2in (27cm) blue john urn with re-gilded ormolu mounts at £2600.

ALTHOUGH catalogued as a late 18th century fruitwood apple form tea caddy, this finely turned and carved 5 1/2in (13cm) high vessel sold by Biddle & Webb (15% buyer’s premium) on April 1 was more accurately a melon.

Silver made in London has borne the distinctive leopard symbol hallmark since 1300 AD, making it one of the earliest forms of consumer protection.

POLICE are investigating the theft of antiques valued at hundreds of thousands of pounds stolen from Uppark, the National Trust House in West Sussex, overnight on June 6-7.

PICTURED here are four very finely-preserved 1950s Bassett-Lowke 0 Gauge clockwork locomotives that were offered by toys and arms and armour specialists Wallis & Wallis (15% buyer’s premium) of Lewes on May 4.

THIS walking stick, thought to have once belonged to John Adams, the longest surviving of the Bounty mutineers, will be on offer at Sworders' (15% buyer’s premium) Summer Country House sale on July 20-21. It is made from a vine found on Pitcairn Island, where Adams and eight of the other mutineers famously settled after landing there on January 23, 1790.

AFTER the first couple of days, all nine dealers participating in London Sculpture Week (which ended on June 18) reported a great deal of interest in their exhibitions with old clients joined by museum people and, most importantly, new customers.

A FIRE that struck three storage warehouses in Vauxhall has damaged lots consigned to the classic car and automobilia auctioneers Coys for their July 3 ‘Jaguar Legend’ sale at Chiswick House.

RETRIEVED by a porter from a box of kitchenalia sent for sale from Northumberland, this early 18th century Staffordshire slipware mug proved the highlight of the sale conducted by H&H King of Carlisle on June 7.

THE Financial Services Authority’s imminent regulation of insurance mediation activity could affect UK auctioneers and fine art shippers who charge for, or help arrange, insurance.

FOUND lying face down in the attic of a local house, apparently unloved, the pastel portrait of a young girl reading a book seen right was the sleeper that awoke to a six-figure bid in an April 3 sale that gave Dennis Auction Service of Stewartsville, New Jersey, their first ever $1m sale total.

SPECIALIST firearms saleroom, Rock Island Auctions of Moline, Illinois, sold over 2800 lots for a total of $5.3m (£3m) in their April 17-19 event. Among the higher priced weapons were three prototype or experimental pistols by Mauser and Walther.

PICTURES in a May 19 sale held by Doyles of New York included a very large (6ft 4 1/2in x 4ft 1in (1.93 x 125m) oil on panel after Andrea del Sarto's Porta Pinti Madonna.