South-west England

Michael Harris signature piece sells well at auction alongside Louis Osman silver spoons set

Good-quality campaign furniture has long been admired for its nifty portable designs, fine craftsmanship and rich provenance.

Better late than never, Woolley & Wallis will get to hold its January jewellery sale this month – on April 29.

Lee Young, Asian specialist and BBC Antiques Roadshow expert, has become the new owner of Frome saleroom Dore & Rees. He left his role as managing director at Duke’s last week.

With hindsight, the boast made by the Flying Steam Company – 'To China in Twenty-Four Hours Certain' – was a tad ambitious.

Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty, has been a favourite subject in art since ancient times.

As the sale title suggested, plenty of Bowie material appeared in Omega’s (28% buyer’s premium inc VAT) David Bowie & Glam Rock Vinyl Records & Memorabilia auction earlier this year.

Experiments with porcelain at the Swansea factory began in 1814 with the arrival of William Billingsley and Samuel Walker from the Nantgarw China Works.

Space for an oddity in your vinyl collection? David Bowie fans obviously feel that way.

Having postponed the sale in November and again in January, Chorley’s finally got to sell an exceptional private collection of early English porcelain in Prinknash Abbey, Gloucestershire, on March 24.

The Winter Antiques Sale at Duke’s (25% buyer’s premium) was topped by consecutive bids of £17,000 each for two Regency white marble busts.

This 3in (7.5cm) brass and ivorine fishing reel is inscribed to the face 'Ustonson & Peters, Makers to the Queen, 48 Bell Yard, Temple Bar, London'.

“It’s been heart-breaking to keep cancelling fairs as people are so keen to trade but the good news is that our event in the Westpoint Arena at the Devon Showground, Exeter, is going ahead on Saturday and Sunday, June 5-6,” says Nick Bayliss of Continuity Fairs.

The medal group of a colonel believed to be the most heavily decorated Military Police officer in the history of the corps sold for a mid-estimate £2400.

If you are a birdwatcher, you need a good pair of binoculars.

British wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill memorabilia in the form of slippers, brandy balloon and cigar box.

John Faber’s mezzotint version of a portrait by John Vanderbank of Nicholas Saunderson (1682-1739), a celebrated blind scientist and mathematician, was bid to 10 times the high estimate in a Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) general clear-out sale.

The postponed January auction at Gloucestershire saleroom Chorley’s will take place on March 23-24.

Bolstered by a strong melt price of over £15 an ounce, domestic silver hollowwares and flatwares are selling strongly. However, it is the pieces of collectable value – novelties, provincial rarities and the work of the best Georgian, Regency and Victorian smiths – that continue to perform best in the market