UK

One of the quirkier and more unusual offerings to feature in Christie’s £3.7m sale of English furniture and works of art on June 7 was this rare Elizabethan map fragment, one of the first tapestries ever produced in England.

In the 1950s, a farmer in Ingatestone, Essex found a tiny silver tag measuring just 3/4in (1.8cm) long on his farm. Shaped like a shield with a ring, one side was engraved LORD RICH above a stylised bird and the other featured a family crest.

FREQUENTLY, the most interesting object in someone’s garage is not the car.

Auctioneers are not just there for the bad things in life. It was in 2006 that Salisbury firm Woolley & Wallis were contacted by Sheffield silversmith C.J. Vander, a company in administration with stock to liquidate.

FIRST a dealer and now an organiser - Phil Savory, a Northamptonshire-based dealer in ceramics and treen who exhibits at fairs in Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Essex, has decided to start his own fairs venture, PJ Fairs.

Salisbury auctioneers Woolley & Wallis are to sell the collection of early English, Scottish and Irish silver belonging to the well-known London dealership How.

THIS year's Grosvenor House Art & Antiques Fair, held from June 14 to 20, was thought by many to have the highest quality stock seen at the event for some time.

THIRTY-six stallholders from Portobello Road made their way to Madrid at the end of June where the London street market was recreated for a day in the Spanish capital.

It’s doubtful that the average person associates car boot sales with burlesque dancers, but that’s the combination you’ll find at the Art Car Boot Fair 2007 in London’s Brick Lane.

COOPER Antique Fairs have a new venue for their latest antiques fair: The Royal Masonic School for Girls, Chorleywood, Hertfordshire.

On June 12, John Still, a private collector from Edinburgh, walked along a deserted Bond Street to arrive at the doors of the Fine Art Society at 6am, just a minute ahead of a second enthusiastic collector.

IT’S not often that eight sheets of paper bring out eight telephone bidders, but that was the case at Mallams’ sale in Oxford on June 8. Yet these were no ordinary scraps. They were, in fact, important pieces of architectural history.

JAMES Podger is to close his Great Grooms antiques centre at Dorking and concentrate all his efforts and resources on consolidating his Great Grooms centre at Hungerford, Berkshire.

THE market for early English portrait miniatures received a sizeable fillip in London last week. The auction record was broken twice within the space of 24 hours with the sale of two iconic images of major figures in British history and this was backed up by a crop of other strong prices for top flight examples from the 16th and 17th centuries.

NEW auctioneers Aqueduct Auctions are holding their first sale on Saturday, June 16 at the Methodist Chapel, Froncysyllte, near Llangollen.

FOR more than a decade, Dorset saleroom Cottees have held biannual sales dedicated to Poole pottery. The most latest event had the sad distinction of being the first since the closure of the Poole Pottery just before Christmas.

The highlight of the Oriental sale conducted by Salisbury auctioneers Woolley & Wallis on May 22 was this underglaze copper-red Qianlong (1736-1795) mark and period moonflask standing 11in (27cm) high.

A futuristic helicopter, an armchair you can’t get out of, vibrating disco shoes, a collapsible bicycle wheel and a jacket that reduces jet lag.

Adrian and Irena, Count and Countess Csàky, have been collectors and dealers of early furniture and works of art for 40 years, trading for three decades from their shop Csàky Antiques on Pimlico Road.

The Art Fund have thrown their weight behind the campaign to save Dumfries House for the nation with a £2m pledge towards acquiring the house and its contents. Christie’s, who are due to sell the contents at a showpiece sale next month, say such good intentions have arrived too late.