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A flat annual user fee of about £1100, private access to fresh-to-market high quality pieces, and no buyer’s premiums to pay. A pipedream? Not according to new venture Whozbuyingwhat.com, an antiques Website that is attempting to introduce a new concept in trading in the market.

A veteran of golfing sales, Bob Gowland has been involved in this specialist field for the past 30 years. With stints at both Phillips and Bonhams under his belt, he has been acting independently for the past 18 months as Bob Gowland International Golf Auctions.

Princess Soraya’s father Khalil lived for much of the 1920s in Germany, where he married Soraya’s Russian-born mother Eva Karl in 1926. Soraya was born in Ispahan in 1932, but lived in Germany until she was five, returning to Iran in 1937.

This quartet of Meissen white figures from Augustus the Strong’s Japanese Palace was a centrepiece of the June 13 evening sale from Longleat, contributing £2.9m to the overall total.

Following hot on the heals of a gold cased pocket watch which took £25,000 Sherborne auctioneers Charterhouse (15% buyer’s premium) found further horological success on May 31 with this early 19th century carriage clock, right.

One of the more curious sections of Sotheby’s sale at Billingshurst on 21-22 May was devoted to natural, rather than man-made statuary.

Brown furniture has proved hard to shift at auction in recent months but the success of this George I burr walnut chest on stand offered at the Bristol Auction Rooms on June 18 may signal the tide is turning.