UK

IT’S been billed as the most important discovery in British numismatics for many years. Now the London auction house Spink are to offer the first newly-discovered Anglo-Saxon gold penny to come to light for almost a century.

PEWTER always forms the first section of Bonhams’ (17.5/10% buyer's premium) oak sales at Chester, and on September 9 enthusiasts, mainly collectors, were there as usual. Most had their eyes on the obvious star offering, the fine Charles II wriggle-work tankard, top right.

ALTHOUGH many vendors decided to hold back some of their best furniture and paintings for the autumn sales, there was enough in Brightwell's (15% buyer's premium) 1266-lot August 11-12 outing to attract holidaymakers as well as some dealers who had not visited Brightwells for some time. As a result, it boasted a healthy 85 per cent take-up by lot and a total of £90,000.

SOMETHING for nothing is seldom attainable but always desirable and David Fletcher of Unicorn Fairs promises just that at his Lancashire fixture on Sunday October 10.

MORE good news for standholders, this time from Ruth Thurman of Field Dog Fairs.

ASIAN Art in London will open with what promises to be a spectacular launch party at the Victoria & Albert Museum on Friday, November 5.

JUST shy of their bicentenary, Whytock and Reid, the Edinburgh furniture makers, were forced into liquidation earlier this year. Foreign competition put paid to a company established in 1807 by Richard Whytock and John Reid that, in its 19th and early 20th century glory days, furnished the great houses and castles of Scotland, often working in partnership with the architect Robert Lorimer.

NOW that few dealers can any longer afford routinely to buy pictures for stock, auctioneers, particularly provincial auctioneers, have become increasingly reliant on private individuals to take take up the slack at their art sales.

CHELSEA-based Paul Andrews has been a full-time dealer since 1965 and for the past 14 years has sold a wide range of antiques from 4000 square feet in the Furniture Cave in King’s Road, London SW10.

NOW well established, the twice-yearly Petersfield Antiques Fair, organised by Caroline Penman at the Hampshire town’s Festival Hall, is a traditional fair which usually ticks over to the general satisfaction of its 43 or so exhibitors.

RIGHT: offered as the final lot of the day, this 21oz Guild of Handicrafts silver and enamel comport proved to be one of the stars of Clarke Gammon Wellers’ sale on September 7.

TO one side of this 4.75in (12cm) high early 19th century lustre and transfer printed jug are the legends No Corn Bill, Universal Suffrage, Annual Parliaments and Vote by Ballot.

PLANS are advanced for a new international London art fair next summer at the Royal Academy’s Burlington Gardens premises.

NOW under new ownership, Petersfield auctioneers Jacobs & Hunt have announced a new monthly general sale.

IT may have been the peak of the summer holiday season, but it was business as usual at Mallams (15% buyer's premium) Gloucestershire rooms when the 515-lot sale on August 19 totalled in the region of £70,000.

Furniture from Hills House, Denham, the property of Sir John and Lady Mills, will be sold at auction by Hamptons of Godalming on October 20.

MONMOUTH dealer Nick Wheatley – a specialist in Arts & Crafts, as the name of his shop Our House 1860-1925, at 6-8 St. James Street, implies – has also beeen building up for a show.

DERBYSHIRE dealer and now organiser, Nicholas Gent started Prestige Ceramics Fairs last June when he took over the London Ceramics Fair at the Lancaster Gate Thistle Hotel from veteran specialist fairs promoter Fred Hynds. He will be back in the capital next January, but, in the meantime, he launches a new event nearer home with the first Derbyshire Ceramics Fair at the Cavendish Hall, Chatsworth on October 9 and 10.

NOW well established, the twice-yearly Petersfield Antiques Fair, organised by Caroline Penman at the Hampshire town’s Festival Hall, is a traditional fair which usually ticks over to the general satisfaction of its 43 or so exhibitors.

ENGLISH Heritage successfully bid £11,500 for a portfolio of 47 photographs of the exterior and interior of the Crystal Palace in a Dominic Winter sale of August 25.