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There is always a premium placed upon unrestored Georgian walnut. There is equally a premium to be paid for miniature pieces. Combine the two and it explains the level of competition achieved for this 18th century miniature bureau at Woolley & Wallis’s July 15 furniture sale.

Twice a year Russian silver and icons are included in Christie’s South Kensington’s (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) routine miniature and vertu sales and it was the 44-lot Russian silver section that saw some of the most consistent bidding in this 587-lot July 15 outing.

SCOTTISH provincial silver is one of the only consistently strong areas of the silver market and, if recent sales in Edinburgh are anything to go by, Banff silver is what everyone wants.

A BASIC clerical error seems certain to delay compensation payments linked to the Sotheby’s/Christie’s price fixing settlement, it has emerged. At least in some cases, the figures quoted in forms sent out notifying claimants of their entitlements have been transcribed in dollars rather than in sterling.

A grant of £25,095 from the National Art Collections Fund has helped the British Library acquire an album of evocative memories of 19th-century Delhi – Reminiscences of Imperial Delhi.

IRELAND: IRISH pictures for many years flew off the rostrum with both a strong private market in Ireland and the money of Irish-Americans to fuel the enthusiasm. Irish art still, of course, sells, but there is no doubt that collectors are becoming more selective.

THE success of Christie`s marines sale in New York will no doubt be heartening news for Bonhams (19.5/10% buyer’s premium) who have been holding specialist marine picture sales for the last 20 years and whose latest offering, the second so far this year, is due to be held at their Bond Street rooms on September 16.

Italian Medals – c.1530-1600 by Philip Attwood, British Museum Press. £250 hb, two volumes. ISBN 01741 08618. Available from Oxbow (+ 44 [0]1865 241249) or Thomas Heneage Art Books, 42 Duke Street, London SW1 6DJ (+ 44 [0]20 7930 9223.

Windsor Chairs: An Illustrated Celebration by Michael Harding-Hill, published by the Antique Collectors Club. ISBN1851494294 £25hb

Cullercoats: A North-East Colony of Artists, by Laura Newton with Abigail Booth Gerdts, published by Sansom & Company with the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. ISBN 1904537014 £19.99 sb

Craft and Conflict: Masonic Trench Art and Military Memorabilia by Mark JR Dennis and Nicholas Saunders, published by Savannah Publications in association with The Library and Museum of Freemasonry. ISBN 1902366166. From bookshops or from the Freemasons Hall, Great Queen Street, London WC2B 5AZ at £8.75 including p&p. Phone orders on 020 7395 9329 (Mon-Fri).

FRANCE: The 162-lot Piasa (17.94/11.96% buyer’s premium) furniture sale on June 25 was 70 per cent sold by lot and brought €1.8m (£1.24m) hammer, with a three-drawered Louis XVI citronwood-veneered bureau plat, with painted metal decoration of arabesques and blue and white medallions, evocative of the work of Pierre Macret (active 1756-85), selling for €340,000 (£234,000) – helped by its leather top with crowned N and imperial corner eagles.

FRANCE: ON July 4 Chayette-Cheval (17.94% buyer’s premium) devoted an entire sale to clocks, watches and related items, achieving a hammer total of €571,000 (£394,000).

THE word from Ireland is that autumn could be hard work – judging by results at the antiques fair staged as part of the Royal Dublin Society Horse Show from August 6 to 10. The Horse Show is a prime event in the city’s social calendar and the idea of the antiques fair – organised in the past by veteran Irish promoter Louis O’ Sullivan but this year by the RDS itself – is to put the 25 exhibitors in a potentially profitable ambience.

Well, it’s happened at last! The first £1million sale of campaign medals and awards (ODM) has taken place. It took Dix Noonan Webb (15% buyer’s premium) 1155 lots to disperse this assemblage. The total was £1,013,510 and this is the hammer total so there was no fudging with the buyer’s premium to jack the total over the magic number.

Miller’s Price Guide 2003: Antiques Under £1000, published by Miller’s. ISBN 184000603X £16.99pb

The Collection of Louis Vivien, a Paris bookseller who opened his shop in Rue des Ecoles in 1905, swiftly specialising in the aeronautical world after attending the inaugural Salon Aéronautique of 1908, provided Tajan (20.33% buyer’s premium) with yet another new sale theme – Aviation – on June 21.

JUST 365 More Days Till Artiade – The Olympics Of Contemporary Art ran the baffling headline of a missive that I received last week. It transpires that Artiade is no less than a grand international art exhibition which will accompany the XXVIII Athens Olympic Games next year.

Last summer Sotheby’s took a bid of £36,000 on a copy of the 1937 first edition of The Hobbit inscribed in October of that year to Tolkien’s Aunt Jane; this summer they raised £40,000 for a copy that he had inscribed at the time of publication.

A biscuit box is probably not every young child’s idea of an exciting toy, but to collectors of tins, advertising and tinplate, the Huntley & Palmers Tribeck lorry tin, 1937, 83/4in (22cm), in Bonhams Knightsbridge’s (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) trains, toys and diecast sale on July 15 was the most coveted entry.