UK

The Antiquarian Bookdealers’ Association is to rebrand its young booksellers’ apprenticeship scheme as a training programme following a change in employment law.

A now-postponed plan by HMRC to require businesses and the self-employed to file tax returns quarterly rather than yearly “would create havoc” if it was imposed as scheduled in 2018, dealers have told ATG.

A rare ebonised framed armchair after the original design by Edward William Godwin (1833-86) sold for £44,000 (plus 18% premium) at Moore Allen & Innocent in Cirencester on April 21.

Several single-owner collections boosted the total of Tennants’ (20% buyer’s premium) Spring Fine Art Sale in Leyburn, North Yorkshire, on March 25.

Networking is far more than a good chinwag. As Baldwin’s of St James’s medal specialist Mark Smith explains, it can also be good business.

For the second year running, two major events – the ABA’s London International Antiquarian Book Fair, running from June 1-3 at the National Hall, Olympia, and the London International Book Fair organised by the PBFA at the ILEC Conference Centre in SW6 on June 2-3 – will run under the marketing umbrella Rare Books London.

In what has been a buoyant first quarter for clocks of quality, the 109 examples at Chiswick Auctions’ (22% buyer’s premium) March 21 sale of horology and European works of art made a significant contribution to the £225,000 taken by the 275 lots on offer.

What Aylsham auction house Keys (20% buyer’s premium) considered one of the largest private collections of Lowestoft ever to come to market was a near sell-out on March 21.

Held several times a year, the all-Cymru affair has been a regular fixture of Rogers Jones’ calendar for 16 years, offering primarily Welsh art and pottery.

A fine collection of Meiji and 19th century Chinese ivory works of art sold at Hansons (17.5% buyer’s premium) offered a window onto a turbulent market.

Saxon Durrant started his business Metroretro in 1994. His Essex firm offers bespoke and reclaimed furniture and also provides props to film production companies. He will be exhibiting at Salvo Fair on June 23-25.

It wasn’t so much a Road to Damascus moment for Edward Crichton but more the road back to Bury St Edmunds, a car journey that provided the Lacy Scott & Knight auctioneer with much-needed think time.

The Buxton Antiques Fair, organised by Cooper Events, runs from May 18-21 in Buxton Pavilion Gardens. It is a quiet yet well-respected presence in the annual fair calendar and has withstood many market changes since it opened more than 50 years ago.

Textiles dealers Caroline Zoob and Hetty Purbrick, organisers of the annual Decorative Living Fair at Eridge Park in Kent, met more than 20 years ago when they were exhibiting at the Kensington Brocante.

News about fairs and markets in the Brighton area...

Silver was among the success stories of the wide-ranging March 30-April 1 sale at Hansons, in particular a 1705 Britannia standard chocolate pot.

One of the more intriguing clocks to come in the market this spring was this early 18th century bracket clock signed to the backplate Cha [rles] Goode, London offered at Duke’s (22% buyer’s premium) on April 12.

A painting by British landscape artist Harry Epworth Allen (1894-1958) drew a flurry of bids at Gardiner Houlgate (20% buyer’s premium) in Corsham near Bath on March 29-31.