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ANOTHER giant two-day sale on March 25-26 put together by David Lay (15% buyer's premium) saw the familiar rapid selling of two and three-figure lots, the cheaper ones mainly accounting for the unsolds, peppered with lots of more quality and wider interest.

LONDON'S twice-yearly series of Islamic sales can usually be relied upon to produce some dramatic results as the deep-pocketed collectors that dominate this market battle to secure their chosen prizes. The latest Islamic series, featuring sales at Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Bonhams, was no exception, with some huge prices generated at all three houses for tiles, Isnik pottery, daggers and jewelled objects.

LAUNCHED back in 1995, Robert Bailey’s annual fair at Claridge’s has always had its own special, cosy little niche on the London fairs calendar. But would it change when this year it became The LAPADA Fine Art & Antiques Fair at Claridge’s?

MARKETING, advertising and promotion may be a multi-billion pound business globally today, but in the early years of the 20th century it was an industry in its infancy.

Valued at £8000-12,000 in a Sotheby’s sale of May 13 is a copy of the 1787, first and only edition of Alexander Shaw’s Catalogue of different specimens of cloth collected in the three voyages of Captain Cook...

Sold at £5500 in a general antiques sale held by Michael J. Bowman of Newton Abbot on March 13 was a group of six manuscript poems written by Ted Hughes for his neighbour Ronald Yates.

RECENT auctions held by Pacific Book Auctions have tended to be driven to a large extent by absentee bidding and by those using the ‘Real-Time Bidder’ internet option, but for a March 25 sale devoted to one man’s collection of letters, photographs, drawings and other mementoes relating to the life of William Randolph Hearst, those old fashioned habits of turning up in the room or even just picking up a telephone were dusted off.