UK

The familiar red-lettered, yellow-cloth covers of an 1897 first of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, though now somewhat soiled, prompted a far higher than predicted bid of $21,000 (£15,150) to lead a Chicago auction of March 19 – a sum bettered only by a handful of inscribed copies.

Traders and buyers express relief – and gratitude – at return of twice-monthly fixture.

It’s nearly four months since the UK left the EU’s customs union and single market – a hard new reality for those Continental antiques dealers who regularly make the day trip from Belgium, Holland or France to stall out at fairs in southern England.

Not to be confused with the modern Peter Rabbit series by Wedgwood, much scarcer teawares were made by the Grimwade’s factory in the 1920s.

Art hub Cromwell Place has received approval from HMRC to operate an official Customs warehouse.

Original photographs of a well-known Pre-Raphaelite beauty – the muse of William Holman Hunt and the mother of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell – sold for £2600 at Sworders (25% buyer’s premium).

Portrait of Sarah Bernhardt was one of the stand-out lots in a 300-lot white-glove auction.

Anything and everything to do with the garden is how Hyson Fairs describes its popular fairs in Devon.

Estimated at just £100-200, a rare automaton of a stereotypical Chinaman smoking an opium pipe sold for £7400 at McTear’s (24% buyer’s premium).

Ground level views of Ceylon offered in same sale as uplifting account of balloon voyages.

After many false dawns Jennifer Titmuss is finally launching her monthly Chiswick Antique and Vintage Market on Sunday May 9.

Swallow Fairs’ first three-day Decorative Home and Salvage Shows this year is the biannual event running at the 14th century Ripley Castle, near Harrogate, from noon on Friday, May 7, to Sunday, May 9.

Sunbury Antiques Market, better known simply as Kempton due to its Surrey racecourse location, last week became the first open-air fair to return after the most recent lockdown.