UK

Sue Norman is a practised hand at The Art & Antiques Fair Olympia (June 26-July 2). As an exhibitor at this west London event for 36 uninterrupted years, she knows the show well, is familiar with the crowd it attracts and approaches it strategically.

In 1953 Pan Am Airlines approached Rolex with a request for a watch that could show the time simultaneously in two different time zones.

Manfred Schotten and Christopher Clarke Antiques join forces this summer for their regular Cotswolds exhibition which takes place every second year.

Asian art dealer Gerald Davison has taken a selling space in The Emporium in Berkshire, which he plans to run as well as his current space at Acreman St Antiques & Interiors.

The prolific 18th century writer Daniel Defoe, of Robinson Crusoe fame, wrote poetically of the River Waveney which forms the 50-mile boundary of the Waveney Valley between Norfolk and Suffolk.

Figural clocks combining novelty and automaton features were very popular in the 19th century, many of them being of French manufacture.

Criterion Auctioneers has opened a valuation office in South Kensington in the hope of snaring some of the business left by the closure of Christie’s in the area.

Figurative sculptor Christy Keeney from Donegal, Ireland, has been an exhibitor at the Earth and Fire International Ceramic Fair in Nottinghamshire for 16 of the 22 annual events held so far.

A Suffolk antiques dealer who bought a cache of 19th and 20th century photographs and postcards of his home town at auction has used them to good effect by publishing a pictorial record in a book.

Fully booked with 90 standholders at the luxury Chateau Impney Hotel at Droitwich Spa in Worcestershire is Two C’s Antiques Fairs’ summer fair on Saturday and Sunday, June 17-18.

Victoria Borwick, president of the British Antiques Dealers’ Association, lost her Kensington seat following two recounts in the constituency at last week's General Election.

Readers old enough to remember using one at school may also recall Sam Cooke’s 1960 song in which he lamented “don’t know what a slide rule is for”. Today, few teenagers would know what one was.

A major work by French academy painter Edouard Joseph Dantan (1846-97), unseen for over a century, has emerged at an auction in Colchester.

Not all the clocks that go under the hammer feature in dedicated horological sales. Pictured here is a selection of some recent highlights at Sotheby's auctions from mixed-discipline sales.

Established in London in 1735, jeweller Garrard has had a long association with the British Royal family.

The three lots briefly described here were not among the very highest priced lots in a Forum Auctions (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) sale of May 24 – but all brought record bids.

Norwich dealer James Brett vowed to continue dealing when he sold 300 pieces of stock at a Sworders sale in 2010. He has been good to his word and this year returns to Olympia for the first time in seven years. ATG spoke to Brett about his business and the wider market.

Conscious that Art Nouveau Daum glassware has been bringing renewed interest of late, auctioneer Catrin Hampton was quickly in touch with potential buyers – particularly Americans – when a table lamp was brought into the Cheltenham rooms of Chorley’s (20% buyer’s premium).

Matt Dixon of TallBoy Unique Interiors, specialises in a mix of taxidermy, architectural salvage, religious artefacts and other items. He will stand at the upcoming Salvo 2017 (June 23-25).

MADAM – Laura Chester’s article ‘Rising to the Portobello challenge’ (ATG No 2295) accurately describes how the antiques section has been, and still is, the backbone of Portobello Market.