UK

Two Charles Rennie Mackintosh chairs made for Glasgow’s Argyle Street Tea Rooms starred at Lyon & Turnbull’s Decorative Arts sale in Edinburgh last week.

The white-glove sale of the Shannon collection of jewellery at Woolley & Wallis was topped at £22,000 (plus 25% buyer’s premium) by a gold bracelet by Omar Ramsden.

Harold Hardman’s journey from amateur footballer and solicitor to chairman of Manchester United in the era of the Busby Babes is a fascinating story in itself. But a medal coming up for auction in Oxford adds even more appeal.

A German silver cigarette case, sold for £4600 at C&T Auctioneers (20% buyer’s premium) in Tunbridge Wells on October 24, was engraved with a detailed scene from the Siege of Mafeking – the famous Boer War defence of a small town commanded by Robert Baden-Powell.

IACF’s antiques and collectors’ fair held in the Bingley Hall at the Staffordshire Showground in October fielded around 140 stalls, according to the organiser.

“We are full up at our antiques and vintage fair in Edinburgh later this month with 250 tables booked,” said Helen Yourston, director of B2B Events.

The Winter Art & Antiques Fair Olympia is to return next year in its new format after dealers made significant early sales and said they were “very happy” with its latest staging,.

Copenhagen auction house Bruun Rasmussen and London dealer Grace Tsumugi Fine Art were the recipients of the 2018 Asian Art in London Awards, co-sponsored by ATG.

Tony Horsley specialises in English porcelain and pottery and is among those exhibiting at the next edition of Art & Antiques for Everyone (November 15-18).

The monthly Big London Flea is located on the ground floor of a former cinema and describes itself as “London’s largest indoor market in the busy heart of Dalston”.

The UK art and antiques trade is calling for an overhaul of the “archaic and regressive system” of business rates and dismissed the Budget rates relief announcement as “too little too late”.

“The chances of finding one that had been bought in a £90 box lot was probably one in a million; the chances of finding two more on the same day are incalculable.” Scientific instruments expert Hugo Marsh was talking about specialist camera lenses he was shown in September, first by a south-coast vendor, then by a West Country enthusiast, which sold at Special Auction Services (17.5% buyer’s premium) at Newbury on October 23.