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Christie’s and Sotheby’s have each agreed to pay $20m (£13m) to clients who bought and sold antiques at auctions held outside America.

HOTELIER Sarah Barrington, who owns the venue, still owns the fair, but David Smith of E.W. Services now organises the popular Thame Easter Antiques Fair, which will run at the Spread Eagle Hotel in the picturesque Oxfordshire town over the Easter weekend of April 18 to 20.

“Is it 19th century?” a London dealer inquired of this unusual famille verte vase illustrated right which had been consigned to Woolley & Wallis’s sale with its partner, the more classical, yen yen vase, far right.

Russian coins seem to fall into a category all their own. Like papal coins and medals they have a worldwide appeal. Perhaps this is because since 1917 there has been a diaspora of Russians.

The little underglaze blue decorated cream pails or piggins made by Lund’s Bristol around 1750 are very rare specimens of English porcelain. Only six examples are known to exist, three of them now in museums, so West Country auctioneers Bearne’s were very pleased to offer this 23/4in (7cm) wide example, which they discovered in a local, private Devon house during a routine insurance valuation.

ON LEARNING that first edition copies of her first two Harry Potter books were to to be sold at Woolley & Wallis’February 12 auction to benefit Action Aid and Children in Need, author J.K. Rowling agreed to add her signature to both books and donated a signed copy of the fourth book in the series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Unseen hoards of silver like this don’t appear on the market very often, so it is little wonder that the UK trade were out in force when it came under the hammer at Christie’s Amsterdam’s (23.2% buyer’s premium) Dutch and foreign silver sale on March 4. The wealth of silver came to light when part of a cellar wall collapsed during the demolition of a house on Breitenstrasse in Bad-Hersfeld, Germany in February 1967.

Specialist sales of Irish material are so few and far between that they are worth enumerating. The celebrated Lockett collec-tion was sold at Glendinings in 1956 and Whytes of Dublin held a landmark sale in April 2000.

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.