Essex

Ken Besford of Durham Promotions NE, organiser of the Great North Decorative Antique Fair, is heading down the straight for the spring edition (Saturday and Sunday, April 26-27) of the triannual event he launched last year at Newcastle Racecourse.

Metal-detecting finds, properly reported to the Portable Antiquities Scheme and since disclaimed as Treasure, are increasing significantly the supply of pre-Georgian jewels. Some fine examples have appeared at auction of late.

An atypical entry to the March 4-9 sale at the Harwich antiquities specialist TimeLine is this gold medal struck in Philadelphia following the sinking of American steamship Casper, on December 23, 1928.

Chanel No 5 was perfected in the late summer and autumn of 1920 by the French-Russian chemist and perfumer Ernest Beaux.

A Roman marble portrait bust of an Antonine prince emerged Sworders’ (25% buyer’s premium) sale in Stansted Mountfitchet.

The auction market can be a fickle beast, as results for the same items offered on separate occasions sometimes show.

A pair of neoclassical mahogany and ormolu demilune pier tables, believed to be John Hobbs-Buggins fakes, have sold for a tiny fraction of their original retail price.

This 20in (51cm) pottery figure of a rhinoceros is dated to the Tang (618-907AD) period.

The late 1960s was a glorious time to be a Baggies fan.

A cross-section of the work of Terence Cuneo (1907-96) featured as part of Sworders’ latest sale of Modern and Contemporary Art in Stansted Mountfitchet.

Modern British painter depicted local life in west London including pub interiors and characters

Maps and documents relating to Quaker family come up at Essex auction house centuries later

This miniature replica car was built by Frenchman Francis Mortarini.

Action comic was withdrawn by publisher IPC before its 37th edition dropped through letterboxes, with 200,000 copies pulped in the process.

Moorcroft pottery collection offered in Essex saleroom had a great focus on signed wares of the initial Macintyre era when the designer was at his prime