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Dismissed by some as the equivalent of Clarice Cliff, the brilliantly coloured, Vorticist-influenced linocuts produced by the Grosvenor School during the inter-war years continue to be the most hotly contested commodity at UK print auctions, particularly when they emerge from long-established private collections.

AMONG all the specialist collecting areas, few can be as specialised or as fervent as the market in items relating to the Titanic. Devizes auctioneers Henry Aldridge & Son (15/10% buyer’s premium) have capitalised on the way enthusiasts will pay big money for anything relating to the doomed liner by holding two specialist sales a year, in April and in September.

Topping the sale of fine watches held at Bonhams’ Bond Street (19.5/10% buyer’s premium) rooms on April 15, was this 18th century gold pair cased verge watch. This had a signed and numbered movement (562) by Daniel Delander, who was free of the Clockmakers Company in 1699, and was contained in plain gold cases marked for London, 1716.

Pictured right is the highlight of Christie’s South Kensington’s (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) first football memorabilia sale of 2003 on March 26. A Cup Tie at Crystal Palace, Corinthians v. Manchester City, by Charles Ernest Cundall, in oil on panel 231/4in x 2ft 51/2in (60 x 75cm), signed C. Cundall lower right, set a new auction record for the artist when it was knocked down to London dealer Chris Beetles for £42,000, double the upper estimate.

AS the antiquities trade brace themselves to cope with the fall-out of the mass looting of artefacts in Iraq, a UK stolen art database takes centre stage once more. Trade organisations in Britain and around the world have acted immediately to ensure members follow guidelines that will prevent any dealing in pieces that may have been looted during the recent Iraq war.

Illustrated are a pair of ice pails, covers and liners from the Duke of Newcastle’s Derby porcelain service, c.1797, dispersed by Mellors and Kirk in Nottingham on April 10.

Among the miniatures and novelties at Dreweatt Neate’s 2 April sale, there was especial interest in a 37-lot private collection of card-cases amassed over 50 years by an Oxfordshire vendor.

FRENCH auctioneers are trying to build links with the British Art Market Federation to campaign against damaging European Union regulations which are driving business across the Atlantic to the USA.

A private collection of 99 microscopes was the highlight of this three-day sale at John Bellmans. No fewer than nine examples realised four-figure sums, the best seller being a 19th century lacquered brass binocular petrological microscope by Watson & Sons which sold to a private collector from London at £3100.

Two early watercolour drawings of rabbits in snowy settings were offered as part of a Bonhams sale of April 1. That seen right shows one rabbit making a snowball while another leans on a fence, while in the illustration reproduced below right, the two rabbits are building a snowman.

DOMINATED as the Doncaster sale at Wilkinsons on 23 February was by solid English oak, it also had its more esoteric moments in the high-price range. But in fact Sid Wilkinson was rather disappointed in the results on these two very different examples of carving.

Sensible estimates coupled with lots of good -quality material were the key to success at Ross’s (12.5% buyer’s premium) in Belfast on March 5. The 252-lot catalogue, from which 90 per cent of pictures were sold by value, taking a hammer total of £350,000, had something to suit all pockets and auctioneer Daniel Clarke felt it to be the sort of sale in which it would have been “impossible not to have found something you like”.

CHANCELLOR Gordon Brown’s Budget plans to help achieve one of the three main aims of the National Art Collections Fund (the Art Fund) campaign to improve art donation. Concern that art owners do not have enough incentive to bequeath works to the nation has led the Chancellor to announce that he will look at introducing a policy of tax relief on such donations – until now, such relief has only been available on donations of cash or shares.

A JUNE 3 New York court hearing will rule whether Sotheby’s and Christie’s should pay $40m compensation to clients who bought and sold at their auctions outside the US during the 1990s.

THE British Antiques and Collectables Awards have come round again, with judges from across the trade and auctioneering profession singling out the cream of their colleagues for praise.

Looking after Antiques by Frances Halahan and Anna Plowden, published by National Trust Enterprises Ltd. ISBN 0707802865 £35hb

FOR the fourth year the Oxfordshire specialist in sporting antiques Manfred Schotten and the London picture dealer Nick Potter have got together for a selling exhibition of golfing art and memorabilia, but for the first time this year the show, which runs until April 17, will be held at Mr Schotten’s shop in Burford.

“AS extreme as always with focused bidding on the key lots,” was Victorian specialist Grant Ford’s frank description of the selective response to Sotheby’s (20/12% buyer’s premium) mid-season British Sale at Bond Street.

Topographical views of Valetta Harbour, Malta, continue to be one of the most solid performers in the salerooms. The latest quality example to turn up in the provinces was this signed Girolamo Gianni (1837-1887) oil on card, right, offered at the Chichester rooms of Stride’s (15% buyer’s premium) on February 28 with an estimate of £4000-6000.

THIS Saturday sale was one of the series of dolls and toys specialist events extending the West Yorkshire auctioneers’ Andrew Harley's reputation in the niche market beyond the more frequent antiques events.