UK

The toy ripped open from plastic and cardboard may bring joy to a child – but it is the simple packaging that makes the big money when that child becomes a collector with an eye on pounds, not play value.

A series of three events aimed at collectors and art enthusiasts in the run up to TEFAF Maastricht (March 13-22) launches next week in London to promote the fair.

Masterpiece London 2015 have signed Bond Street dealership Richard Green – a significant boost to this year’s event.

Leading Lyon & Turnbull’s latest furniture and works of art sale in Edinburgh was this fine George II mahogany breakfront bookcase c.1755 in the manner of Vile and Cobb.

Charles ninth Duke of Wellington will appear with Dame Rosalind Savill in this year’s Face to Face conversation at Anna and Brian Haughton’s Art Antiques London fair in Kensington Gardens in June.

Commenting on the wider marketplace in her capacity as chairman of the Society of Fine Art Auctioneers, Helen Carless, chairman and managing director of Lawrences of Crewkerne, gave ATG this brief summary of the feedback received from various SOFAA members.

Sherborne auctioneers Charterhouse have been instructed to sell the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) and Distinguished Flying Medal (DFM) pair awarded to a member of 617 Squadron, more commonly known as The Dambusters.

Five truly remarkable items of British wartime history are being offered for sale at J.P. Humbert Auctioneers of Towcester.

Strict rules governing the integrity of early English coinage could lead to the newly uncovered Aylesbury Hoard revising our perspective of the Anglo-Saxon period.

The discovery of Anglo-Saxon coins near Aylesbury in December is the largest find of its type in 175 years.

This year’s LAPADA Conference will take place for a third time at The House of Lords, by courtesy of chairman, Lord Chadlington, on Tuesday, February 24. 

Police are investigating a theft that occurred at Christie’s King Street premises at the end of last year.

A superb combination of history, condition and rarity came together as a figurehead from a Brazilian slavers’ ship sold at Essex saleroom Sworders for ten times the low estimate at £50,000.

Personal effects of Sir Winston Churchill, including the morocco dispatch box pictured here, were among the highlights of Sotheby’s highly publicised estate sale of his youngest child, the late Mary Soames.

Sherborne auctioneers Charterhouse are on a roll with Republican period (1911-49) porcelain.

Appearing at a recent sale held by Toovey’s of Washington, West Sussex, this Imperial Qianlong famille rose and calligraphic vase sold for a house-record £520,000.

One of the best-loved of all of E.H. Shepard’s illustrations to the famous A.A. Milne books has set a saleroom record after selling for £260,000.

Dreweatts & Bloomsbury have announced two new alliances as they reshape the wider business as part of the Stanley Gibbons Group.

The stock of the Austrian-born British studio potter Lucie Rie (1902-95) continues to rise in the saleroom.

A series of deals to safeguard the future of the Wedgwood Collection and ensure it will continue to be displayed in the Potteries have now been completed.