Oxfordshire

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.

The hotels of Newbury were full of lovers on Valentine’s Day – lovers of Chinese jade. A packed room and a full bank of telephones were buzzing as Dreweatt Neate sold Chinese jade from the collection of the late June, Lady Horlick, including many pieces acquired from the London trade in the 1960s and 1970s and not seen on the market since then.

ANDY Briggs of Fat Cat Fairs has added Woodstock Antiques Fairs to his other three fairs. However, for the next six months at least the name will not change and it will not be incorporated into Fat Cat’s/Silhouette Fairs’ other events at Abingdon, Burford and Lechlade.

JAY Fairs’ Joy O’Meara is holding her Winter Antiques and Collectors’ Fleamarket at Didcot Civic Hall, Didcot, Oxfordshire on Sunday October 8.

THE giant RAF Swinderby fair will ditch Sunday trading and move to a Monday to Wednesday slot in the run-up to Newark from January.

Setting a new house record for Holloways of Banbury, this enigmatic alabaster urn shot to £170,000 (plus 15% buyer’s premium) on October 18.

POLICE are warning antiques dealers to look out for the two men, pictured left, who they believe are professional thieves targeting antiques centres and shops.

Following the decision of Thames Valley estate agents Simmons and Son to concentrate upon their core business, a new firm of fine art auctioneers and valuers has been established in Watlington.

NEXT month The Country Seat turn the spotlight for the second time on fin de siècle pioneering lighting designer W.A.S. Benson, when they mount an exhibition, The Talented Mr Benson, at their picturesque medieval tithe barn at Huntercombe off the A4130 near Henley on Thames in Oxfordshire.

IT was a matter of success breeding success for Oxfordshire auctioneers Holloway’s in March. Late last year they sold an 18th century ivory bust, possibly of Handel, for £29,000, and when the owner of a tiny medieval ivory panel read of it in ATG No 1671, January 8, he decided to offer it in the Banbury rooms.

AS Easter approaches life is picking up apace on the provincial fairs scene.

“SWINDERBY goes it alone, a week before Newark,” was the headline in the ATG’s October 23 issue last year. With dmg’s Newark ditching their Monday and Tuesday slot in favour of a Thursday to Saturday event (February 3-5) this put Swallow Fairs’ at RAF Swinderby a full week ahead with their Thursday to Sunday show on January 28-30.

Oxfordshire pottery dealer John Howard, who specialises in Staffordshire, has an exceptionally busy 2005 lined up.

A more academic ivory carving than anything at Kidson-Trigg’s sale was this unsigned but fine quality 6 3/4in (17.5cm) portrait bust, right, offered at the Banbury rooms of Holloways (15% buyer’s premium) on November 30.

CONSOLIDATING his comeback, Reg Cooper, who now operates as Caminade Antiques Fairs, encountered a bit of old-fashioned fair wars skulduggery at his second Oxfordshire Antiques Fair, held from December 10 to 12 at Heythrop Park.

SOME of the 16 shows which comprise the traditional autumn season of selling exhibitions held by the Cotswold Antiques Dealers’ Association have already been covered in this column but here are a few more to whet the appetite.

AT a time when many dealers are scaling down and reducing costs, Burford sporting antiques specialist, Manfred Schotten, is opening his new trade warehouse to coincide with his Old Sport. Here's Sport Indeed exhibition as part of the CADA autumn selling exhibition which runs from October 9-23.

VETERAN organiser Fred Hynds of Wakefield Ceramics Fairs holds a ceramics event at Burford School, Burford, Oxfordshire this weekend on October 2 and 3.

AFTER two and a half years of exile from organising (following the sale of Cooper Antiques Fairs to Sue Ede) Reg Cooper, is delighted to be back on the scene.

KNOWN for her stock of top-quality, early furniture with character, Lucy Johnson holds a special selling exhibition this weekend from September 3 to 5 at her showroom, a 17th century stone barn just outside Burford on the Cotswold Wildlife Park Estate, Oxfordshire.