UK

ON June 4, as part of the Fortunoff library, Bloomsbury Auctions sold a 1936 first of John Maynard Keynes’ enormously infleunetial General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money for £1700 (Bauman).

THE forerunners of their kind may have been a relatively humble form of seating, but, as two lots in the recent English furniture sales showed, it wasn’t long before the Windsor chair began to branch out.

THE railways themselves may not be as dependable as they were, but you can absolutely count on Sheffield Railwayana Auctions coming up with the goods. June 12 saw the specialists, who still don’t charge buyer’s premium, steaming along to a £438,000 total from 530 lots.

ONE of Wales’s premier regular antiques events, almost certainly the most popular, has its summer outing on the weekend of July 17 and 18 when The Carmarthen Antiques & Collectors’ Fair runs at the United Counties Showground.

POSH country house car boot sales are becoming almost as common as the more familiar down-market variety.

THERE were few head-turners at Greenslade Taylor Hunt's (15% buyer's premium) 738-lot specialist book and clock sale on May 13, with dealers and collectors bidding selectively for the best quality works.

SAIREY Gamp and Tony Weller are two of the most commonly encountered Royal Doulton character jugs (and accordingly among the cheapest) but only very rarely are the two Dickens’ characters seen as bookends.

WEST Country foodies will no doubt be aware that the two-star Michelin chef John Burton Race and his family (they of French Leave fame) have recently moved to Devon to take over the famous Carved Angel restaurant in Dartmouth from Joyce Molyneux. Burton Race is planning a refurbishment and will rename the restaurant the New Angel in reference to its new mascot, a glass sculpture of an angel with a sword commissioned from the nearby Dartington factory.

“ONE has to get sellers to be realistic and then things will sell,” commented Clive Stewart-Lockhart in the wake of the Donnington Priory sale conducted by Dreweatt Neate (15% buyer’s premium) on May 26.

BEFORE the acceptance of the clay pigeon (patented in 1880) as the most suitable target for skeet shooting, there was glass ball shooting. Thought to originate in Britain in the 1830s, but quickly spreading to the United States, shooting at uniform spherical glass target balls was a recognised Victorian pastime that gathered momentum following the invention in 1877 of a trap capable of casting a missile through the air in a long arc.

HAVING spent millions of pounds revamping their Bond Street flagship saleroom, could Bonhams (19.5/12% buyer’s premium) succeed in attracting the sort of prestigious consignments of Modern and Contemporary art which are going to be the life-blood of any successful international auction house in the early 21st century?

BOUND in contemporary vellum, a 1681 first of Tel Ignea Satanae... [The Fiery Darts of Satan] by Johann Christoph Wagenseil was sold for £1000 (Powell) in an Y Gelli sale of June 11.

DECORATIVE, functional and large – the undisputed highlight of Andrew Grant's (15% buyer's premium) 525-lot May 13 sale was a gilt-framed hall mirror catalogued as in the manner of William Kent.

AN impressive sight at 24in (61cm) high on its hardwood base, this Japanese Meiji period bronze cockerel provided the clear highlight of the quarterly antiques and fine art sale conducted by ELR (15% buyer’s premium) at the Sheffield Saleroom on June 11.

PROBABLY the best-known and the most coveted of the novelty table lighters made by the Ronson Lighter Co. is the 1936 patent Touch-Tip Bartender.

I HAVE been asked to alert readers to the annual Beadwork and Bead Fair – and why not? There are many more arcane items which have societies devoted to them and beads obviously have staying power for the fair has been going for 15 years.

TOYS from before the First World War up to the 1970s met with an enthusiastic reception at Wallis & Wallis' (15% buyer's premium) specialist sale on June 14, few more so than a c.1912 Lehmann tinplate toy which raised something of an ethical question.

PICTURED right is a 2ft 1in (64cm) Jacobean amputation saw made by Robert Hobbs that is appearing at a sale at the Cedars Hotel in Stowmarket, Suffolk on July 30.

PROVING the highlight of the commemoratives offered by Special Auction Services (15% buyer’s premium) in the wake of the Leslie Crowther collection of pot lids and Prattware on June 7 was this George III King and Constitution earthenware beaker.

WHAT local organiser Cliff Woods of London Antiques Fairs terms his Antiques Shopping Weekend will be held on July 16 and 17 at the Royal Star & Garter Home for disabled ex-servicemen on Richmond Hill, Richmond, Surrey.