News

A former chief executive of Vernon’s Pools hit the jackpot at Vectis (10 per cent buyer’s premium) on May 8-9, when the specialist toy auctioneers dispersed just over 2000 lots of his Dinky and Corgi vehicles at their Buckingham salerooms for a total of £350,000.

Rising above all else at the Chichester sales held by Strides (15% buyer’s premium) on April 26 was this 9ft (2.74m) high, c.1800 mahogany longcase clock, right. In a market where decorative clocks are selling better than ever, this piece by Hardeman and Son of Bridge was a timely reminder that large, plain clocks can still do very well if they have an unusual movement.

Why not make life simple? antiquestradegazette.com will now email you each week with details of newly available auction catalogues, together with information on realised prices. What's more, this service is FREE if you register NOW. Email us at info@antiquestradegazette.com with the words Send Auction Listing in the subject line.

Sir Nicholas Goodison, chairman of the National Art Collections Fund (the Art Fund) since 1986, is to step down from the post at the end of the year.

THIS wig powderer was made in York in 1817. Described in Michael Clayton’s book The Collector’s Dictionary of Silver & Gold of Great Britain & North America as “a tapering cylinder, from the cover of which rises a tube with a mouth of spherical form,” this type is dated to around 1800.

This Chamberlains Worcester yellow ground beaker-shaped vase c.1802, painted with a figure emblematic of Fame and supporting a miniature of Admiral Lord Nelson to commemorate the battle of the Nile, appeared at Law Fine Art on May 22 with an estimate of £4000-6000, having been consigned by a “Middle England” collector.

Painter Albin Burt’s customised copy of an otherwise standard textbook, a two-vol., 1817 edition of Stewart’s Elements of the Natural History of the Animal Kingdom, contains extensive manuscript additions and hundreds of original illustrations to add to the basic 12 engraved plates.