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When buying back their heritage, Cardiff City FC and supporters may not be in the same financial league as Manchester United, but they were a welcome factor at Lockdales (19.5% buyer’s premium).

The Fish Footman puppet is among the most sought after of the entire back catalogue of Pelham Puppets.

According to patent documents dated February 1928, Woodlite headlamps invented by a William G Woods of Los Angeles were said to give the driver better illumination of distant objects ahead.

While furniture and books fully justified its title, The Oxford Library Sale at Mallams (22.5% buyer’s premium) was led by a surprise star: a rather lowly regarded gesso bust of the sort that would have been a minor decoration to such a room.

A collection of automaton advertising panels formed by two dedicated enthusiasts over a 20-year period will go under the hammer on March 12 at Drouot in Paris in a sale mounted by Auction Art Rémy le Fur.

MADAM – Reading about the unfortunate theft of a Handley & Moore bracket clock from the shop of Patrick Sandberg on Kensington Church Street on February 3 (ATG No 2429) reminded me of the clock (pictured below) that had sadly been stolen from my parents’ home in Burford, Oxfordshire, in 1984.

ATG’s selection of auction lots bought by internet bidders on thesaleroom.com from the period February 6-12, 2020. This includes both the highest prices over estimate and the top prices paid online.

The market for both film and music posters is booming but original artwork for such designs can also be a very collectable option for buyers.

The collection of the late Elizabeth ‘Betty’ Seeler comprising the contents of her home in Forest Hill Gardens went under the hammer at Millea Bros (25% buyer’s premium) in New Jersey on January 30.

As well as painting sunny pictures of children on the beaches of Cornwall, Dorothea Sharp (1874-1955) frequently turned her paintbrush to still-lifes.

Publisher tried to link book to the poet to boost sales but a revised version was issued instead

Moseley Antiques Emporium south of Birmingham city centre is closing after more than 25 years in business.

The Victorian artist John Bagnold Burgess (1829- 97), grandson of a painter who counted Thomas Gainsborough among his pupils, was best known as a painter of genre scenes.

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions.

The art market is coming to grips with a new regime of stricter regulation which forces auction houses and dealers to know a lot more about their customers than ever before. The new anti-money laundering regulation came into force on January 10 but the market has been awaiting a document of guidance that will help them steer through this complex new regulations. Here art market lawyer Tom Christopherson, one of the BAMF team reviewing the new guidance, runs through the 109-page document to help explain some of the most complicated elements.

The recent auction of 20th century design at Sworders (25% buyer’s premium) in Stansted Mountfitchet was underpinned by more than 60 consignments from the estate of MJ Long.

Shin-hanga, meaning ‘new prints’, emerged in Japan during the early 20th century. Aimed at Western tastes, the artistic movement combined the traditional colourful woodblock prints known as ukiyo-e with nostalgic and romanticised Japanese subjects.

Sold for £4600 in a February 6 sale held in the Chichester salerooms of Stride & Son (18% buyer’s premium) was an album of cut-paper work produced by Elizabeth Cobbold c.1810-20.

Modestly catalogued as English School, 1960s, a Modern British study of a head emerged as one of the top-selling pictures at Sworders (25% buyer’s premium) in Stansted Mountfitchet.

Star turn among some 120 lots of playing cards offered as part of a Stroud Auctions (18% buyer’s premium) sale was the last to be offered. A complete set of Charles Hodges’ Astronomical Playing Cards, it sold online for £3000.