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USA: The annual general sale of good quality classical coins (446 lots) hosted by the triumvirate of Baldwins (London), Markov (New York) and M&M (Washington DC) took place in the Big Apple on January 17.

BOOKS played a fairly minor part in the first Newbury antiques sale of the year at Dreweatt Neate on 30 January – one that raised in excess of £1.5m, a record for the Berkshire saleroom – but they did get the proceedings under way, and the very first lot in the catalogue, a misbound and now disbound and browned copy of Love in a Village, a comic opera as performed at The Theatre Royal, Covent Garden... showed the way in selling for a double estimate £200.

FRANCE: TOBACCOLOGY may not be the word on everybody’s lips in these smoke-free days but it was the official theme of the offbeat sale held by Rieunier-Bailly-Pommery at Drouot on January 28.

FRANCE: Camard reported “strong progress” in demand among trade and private buyers for 20th century ceramics last year. They returned to the field this year when they offered a “panorama of 100 years of history of ceramics” at Drouot on January 25.

THE judgment in the £1.5m claim against Mayfair art dealers Agnew’s could have important repercussions for the rules and conventions on attribution in UK art sales.

Sotheby’s have responded to the threat of legal action over alleged price fixing at UK auctions, playing down the claims of legal firm Class Law.

FRANCE: Pictured right is a restored 18th century two-part fountain basin, with a veined red marble shell topped by a white stone lion head, which sold over expectations for €25,000 (£15,500) at Tajan on January 30

Buying art as an investment has always been a perilous business. Back in the 1920s during the so-called Etching Boom speculating collectors were prepared to pay hundreds of pounds – ie more than the price of an average London house – for single prints by ultra- fashionable artists such as Muirhead Bone, David Young Cameron and James McBey.

Rise of Winifred Nicholson goes on apace with amazing bid of £100,000 for portrait of Ben: Over the last two or three years Winifred Nicholson (1893-1981), the first wife of Ben Nicholson, has become an increasingly significant figure in the Modern British market, culminating in the record £52,000 paid last July at Phillips for one of her trademark window still lives.

Anyone looking at this small 19th century still life painting, right, for the first time could be forgiven for rubbing their eyes with disbelief to hear that East Sussex auctioneers Gorringe’s (15% buyer’s premium) had allocated it an estimate of £20,000-30,000 at their January 29-31 sale in Lewes.

Pictured right is one of Twelve Angels, 9ft 10in (3m) high towering chairs made of dried branches that look like sinuous dancers. They are the work of Polish designer Dorota Koziara and three of these are among the more striking furniture forms to be found in CDA 2002, the 6th annual exhibition of Contemporary Decorative Arts and Design that opens at Sotheby’s Bond Street Galleries on February 20 and runs until March 1.

THIS first sale of the new year at the Staffordshire rooms Richard Winterton attracted a number of new buyers who were all in the area for the LAPADA fair at the nearby Birmingham NEC.

The Wiltshire rooms Woolley & Wallis usually hold four specialist carpet sales a year but a fifth was squeezed in before the scheduled Valentine’s Day event, and with a 77 per cent rate and £77,000 total on the 284 lots on offer, the decision by specialists June Barrett and Ian Bennett was more than justified.

A privately sourced collection of jewellery boosted this first dispersal of the year in these Hampshire rooms at George Kidner on 9 January – “the bulk of the rest of the material was just good stock pieces”, said auctioneer Andrew Reeves.

London’s first costume and textile sale of the year took place at Christie’s South Kensington (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) at the end of January, the 318 lots netting just over £150,000 with an 87 per cent take-up by lottage, 89 in money.

The London art market received a major lift in the salerooms last week when Sotheby’s and Christie’s attracted remarkably strong levels of international demand for their February round of Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary auctions.

THE Antique Collectors’ Club have published the results of their Annual Furniture Index, which shows a seven per cent rise for 2001. The index now stands at 3575, its highest point ever, from a base of 100 in 1968.

France has taken the first step towards adopting Unidroit, which enforces strict controls on the restitution of stolen art. On January 29 a first reading of the bill ratifying the convention was adopted by the Assemblée Nationale (lower-house).

THE collapse of Enron seems to have had a belated effect on the price of gold – but for the better. Gold rose by more than $23 (£16) per ounce this week, a positive move that was reflected by a slight rise in both silver and platinum, as buyers seek more tangible assets for investment.

LAWYERS say that Sotheby’s and Christie’s can expect to face a £100m lawsuit over price-fixing at UK auctions within the next few weeks.