West Midlands

A late 19th century musical automaton made during the Golden Age of French automata emerged from a Staffordshire house clearance to take £3200 at Richard Winterton (22% buyer’s premium).

Another newcomer to the rising popularity of antiques fairs held in garden centres is Elephant Promotions.

For the Bed at Kelmscott was written by William Morris in 1891 as an ode to the oak four-poster at his country home in the Thames Valley.

It is not often that a rugby shirt survives for almost a century.

This 9ct gold pocket compendium with hallmarks for Alfred Dunhill & Sons, London, 1950, hammered at the lower end of a £15,000-20,000 estimate at Fellows in Birmingham on August 21.

Hartlebury Castle in Kidderminster was home to the bishops of Worcester for 1000 years, including Pope Clement III who refused Henry VIII his divorce from Catherine of Aragon.

Runjeet Singh is an Indian and Islamic art dealer. A collector first, he began dealing in antiques in 2014 and then opened a British Asian Contemporary art gallery this April in Royal Leamington Spa. The gallery operates alongside his antiques-focused dealership. Here he tells ATG all about his business

Prices for artist-decorated Royal Worcester porcelain have been waning since the collecting peak of the previous century. However, very substantial sums are still possible for the best of the genre.

A double celebration took place at Richard Winterton Auctioneers when two members of staff wed.

Two fairs in Birmingham are joined by new Greater Manchester event before another in Scotland

Stephanie Castell and Ben Cooper, of Two C’s Antique Fairs, are coming down the straight for their antiques fair in Shropshire on Saturday July 11 and Sunday July 12.

A four-page letter written by Edward ‘Bill’ Wilson to a friend during the early days of the doomed British Antarctic Expedition sold for £19,000 at Fieldings (26% buyer’s premium) in Stourbridge.

Richard Winterton (22% buyer’s premium) offered what was described simply as a “post Second World War” leather flying helmet with goggles and gas mask on May 21 in Tamworth.

A trade card featuring football player Steve Bloomer (1874-1938) went well beyond its guide of £6000-8000 as it hammered for £24,000.

The artist Alfred W Hallett (1914-86) is mostly known for his portraits, landscapes and flower paintings made in India from 1938 onwards.

A bronze by Antoine Barye dating from 1860 was among the stand-out sales at the recent staging of Classic Antique Fairs.