Art and antiques news from 2015

Sales of coins and medals at UK auctions have doubled in value over the past decade to £44.7m.

The Stanley Gibbons Group has won the Deal of the Year at the 2015 Quoted Company Awards for its acquisition of Noble Investments.

Dreweatts & Bloomsbury Auctions, part of the Stanley Gibbons/Noble Investment stable of companies, have boosted their expertise further with a recruitment drive.

The Black Beauty, the prototype for all Gibson Les Paul guitars, will appear at Guernsey Auctions’ February 19 sale in New York.

The best dissertation by a student on the Masters course in Art Appraisal (Professional Practice) at Kingston University will win a prize courtesy of Antiques Trade Gazette.

A series of works by Joan Miró gave a major boost to Christie’s latest evening auction of Impressionist, Modern and Surrealist art.

Five works by Claude Monet helped Sotheby’s set a new high for a London auction of Impressionist, Modern and Surrealist art last night.

The Antique Collectors’ Club’s Annual Furniture Index (AFI) registered its seventh successive fall in 2014. However, only two categories depreciated substantially.

Exceptional pieces of antique furniture play by quite different rules to the more standard items when it comes to price performance.

The toy ripped open from plastic and cardboard may bring joy to a child – but it is the simple packaging that makes the big money when that child becomes a collector with an eye on pounds, not play value.

Strong sales of Modern and Contemporary art plus the Félix Marcilhac decorative arts collection helped propel Sotheby’s to the highest auction total in France in 2014, with sales figures of €213m.

Specialist fine art insurance brokers Anthony Wakefield & Co. are to offer cover for auctions cancelled or abandoned due to technical failure.

The owner of leading south Florida auction house Elite Decorative Arts has pleaded guilty to wildlife trafficking and agreed to a fine of $1.5m.

A series of three events aimed at collectors and art enthusiasts in the run up to TEFAF Maastricht (March 13-22) launches next week in London to promote the fair.

This version of John Constable’s (1776-1837) celebrated painting ‘Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows’ sold for $4.5m (£3.1m) at Sotheby’s Old Master sale in New York yesterday. It was an oil sketch with quite a backstory.

Dreweatts & Bloomsbury Auctions are to conduct monthly collectors’ sales in collaboration with website The Auction Room – the first taking place on February 4-5.

Masterpiece London 2015 have signed Bond Street dealership Richard Green – a significant boost to this year’s event.

The buyer of £25.5m worth of artworks left on a train in Italy faces a legal claim from the heir of the man from whom they were stolen in 1970.

Sotheby's have announced a new buyer’s premium structure in New York. Effective from February 1, the rates will apply as follows:

The heavy volume of snow on the East Coast of America has led to the cancelling and rescheduling of auctions.