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The French auction system could be set for more reform with a draft bill recommending further change due to be launched later this month.

A trio of tickets issued by one of the UK’s first passenger railways sold for £1050 at a recent sale held by David Duggleby (21% buyer’s premium) in Scarborough.

The latest Impressionist & Modern art auction series in London generated decent competition on a few key lots but the overall total was the lowest for a February series in this category since 2016.

The Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle was among the buyers when Tennants sold 13 quilts that belonged to Durham hill farmer Hannah Hauxwell (1926-2018) on February 9.

On Friday, March 1, Michael Bloomstein of Brighton was paying the following for bulk scrap against a gold fix of $1309.95 / €1155.47 / £989.27:

Travelling from Glasgow to the south of England courtesy of a commission bid, this Hornby-Dublo train EDG 7 tank goods set, right, went at 10 times the lower estimate at McTear’s (24% buyer’s premium) sale on February 1.

Bonhams’ (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) latest sale of 19th century pictures in London may have been small – running to just over 100 lots – but what it lacked in size it made up with the broad scope of its contents.

Sotheby’s has reported a 16% jump in sales to $6.4bn (£4.8bn) for 2018 – a reward for its focus on growing online and private sales. Profit, or adjusted net income, improved by 5.9% to $128.9m.

Two unusual and successful lots from a February 20 sale held by Lockdales (19.5% buyer’s premium) of Ipswich.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

This 1962 photograph of artist Lucio Fontana, below, is included in the UK’s first solo show of works by Ugo Mulas (1928-73).

Among the 70-plus exhibitors attending the Textile Society’s annual Antique and Vintage Textiles Fair at the Armitage Centre in Manchester on Sunday, April 14, is fan specialist Mary Cooper.

The plethora of single-collection sales at the start of the year was not at the expense of old-fashioned auctions offering good-quality offerings across the range of dealing and collecting – such as the Winter Fine Arts sale at Duke’s (25% buyer’s premium) of Dorchester.

ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from March 5-16, 2019.

Old Master art dealer Mark Weiss began exhibiting at TEFAF Maastricht in 1988. But for all the important 16th and 17th century portraits Weiss has sold at the Dutch fair since then, few are likely to have made a local connection quite like his gallery’s star object for 2019.

Paris is a centre for auctions of Pre-Columbian art. On March 18 Copages is offering an Italian collection of works that were sourced from major salerooms such as Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Loudmer as well as specialist dealers like Galerie Mermoz and the Emmeritz Gallery.

MADAM – We can always count on Gavin Littaur to fill your letters page with a hefty dose of common sense (ATG No 2381). But I fear his dispute with Defra will come to nothing if my present spat with HMRC is anything to go by.

The sale at Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood (plus 21% buyer’s premium) on January 29 – an event dominated by the multi-estimate performance of a Qianlong mark vase in the Ming taste sold at £460,000 (see ATG No 2378) – also included a hardwood (probably olivewood), bone and mother-of-pearl inlaid model of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

What seems to have been an overdue clear-out at Monmouth Trading Standards department led to half a dozen lots of imperial weights and measures being consigned to Stroud Auctions (18% buyer’s premium).