UK

Glasgow auction house McTear’s have scrapped payments over the phone in a bid to tackle credit card fraud. They now use an online system, which they say customers prefer and is safer all round.

It’s closing time for another antiques market in the Portobello Road area where dealers increasingly fear for the future of their trade.

On May 19, Channel Island auctioneers Martel Maides are set to offer the first single-owner house sale on Jersey for almost a decade with an on-site 500-lot sale of The Priors in St Saviours.

A studio collection of works by Charles James Adams (1859-1931), best known for his animal pictures, is to be offered at The Cotswold Auctions’ specialist picture sale on May 18 in Cirencester.

New London auction outfit Artem will host their inaugural sale on May 18 at the Royal Institute of Great Britain on Albemarle Street, W1.

Sworders’ Spring Country House sale in Stansted Mountfitchet on April 24 included a remarkable collection of pieces designed by Augustus Pugin for his own Ramsgate home.

An album containing over 200 photographs belonging to Flight Lieutenant Herbert Carmichael “Bird” Irwin (1894-1930), captain of the airship R101, is to be offered for sale at Netherhampton Salerooms in Salisbury, Wiltshire, on May 16.

Beset by allegations of non-payment and credit card irregularities, Berkshire saleroom Cameo Fine Art Auctioneers have suspended trading.

One of the UK’s most prolific and accomplished art fraudsters has been jailed for two years after admitting he created up to 1000 forgeries.

Two suspects have been charged in connection with the theft of 18 Chinese hardstone carvings worth millions of pounds from the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge on April 13.

This silver inkstand made by William Robb of Ballater, assayed in Edinburgh in 1910, is one of ten items by the silversmith to be included at Batemans sale on May 5 in Stamford, Lincolnshire.

Wind in the Willows characters Mole, Ratty and Toad are to go under the hammer at Michael Bowman of Newton Abbot in Devon on May 5.

Bids in the region of £1000-1500 are expected at Plymouth Auction Rooms on May 9 for this Eureka four-glass electric clock.

At their May 9-10 sale, Stroud Auction Rooms in Gloucestershire will include over 200 lots of weights and scales from a single collection.

THERE can be few more instantly recognisable forms in English furniture than the Windsor chair. Since the early 1970s, Michael Harding-Hill has been well known as an authority on the subject, publishing ‘Windsor Chairs, An Illustrated Celebration’, a book which pictures many examples that passed through his hands over many decades as a dealer.

IF pearls reached the peak of their popularity in antiquity, when the Roman general Vitellius is said to have financed an entire military campaign by selling just one of his mother’s pearl earrings, then the market in 2012 does not rest too far behind.

TRADERS in Sheffield have launched an initiative to promote the city’s antiques quarter that could provide a template for other parts of the country to follow.

A rare Märklin ‘first series’ tinplate toy ’HMS Terrible’ was the jewel in the Ron McCrindell collection sold by Special Auction Services of Greenham, near Newbury, on April 20.

STUDENTS from West Dean College near Chichester will offer their work at auction to raise funds to supplement the college’s bursary and scholarship schemes.

BALDWIN’S are to sell the most complete collection of British gold sovereigns, formed over 34 years, with the first tranche being offered on May 8 in London.