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UK: HUGH Scully, Antiques Roadshow presenter since 1981, has signed a five-year deal with internet auction house QXL.com, worth £3m.

UK: THIS pair of vases, 11in (28cm) high, from the sideboard of a house in Herstmonceux, East Sussex, set a new record for Moorcroft when they appeared at Gorringes Lewes on October 19.

THE International art auction market registered a 3.5 per cent increase for the year ending September 1, 1999, according to Art Sales Index figures.

NETHERLANDS: Van Gogh’s oil landscape A Park in Spring, was the highlight of the inaugural exhibition to mark the opening of Sotheby’s new Netherlands headquarters on October 15.

US: PROFITS from the catalogue for Christie’s New York’s October 27 and 28 Marilyn Monroe auction may bring as much as the sale itself.

GERMANY: COMPANIES advertising public auctions or sales on the Internet in Germany are breaking the law and should be stopped, say the German Society of Auctioneers and Fine Arts, Der Bundesverband Deutscher Kunstversteigerer.

GERMANY: THE German Society of Auctioneers, Der Bundesverband Deutscher Kunstversteigerer is mounting a legal challenge to prevent Internet auction firms from advertising their sales in Germany as public auctions or sales.

EIRE: The long-awaited auction of one of Ireland’s foremost collections took place in Dublin on October 14 when Mealy’s, in association with Christie’s, dispersed the contents of 25 Fitzwilliam Street Upper, former residence of the late James Murnaghan, a Justice of the Supreme Court and chairman of the National Gallery of Ireland.

FRANCE: AFTER a hearing with the examining magistrate on September 29, leading Paris auctioneer Jacques Tajan has been charged with “suborning a witness and serious breach of trust” over the sale of bronzes by Alberto Giacometti at Drouot in July 1994.

UK: LADY Charlotte Schreiber was a celebrated 19th century collector numbering ceramics, enamels and fans amongst her passions.

UK: Charles Napier Hemy’s seascape Life 4ft 6in x 6ft (1.24m x 1.83m), signed and dated 1913, with reverse inscription, set a record for Salisbury auctioneers Woolley & Wallis on October 12 when it sold for a double mid-estimate £110,000 plus premium.

UK: BRIGG auctioneers DDM hit the headlines after selling a household vinyl blind decorated with art work by David Hockney for £11,000 (plus 10 per cent premium).

FRANCE: THE French government is to prosecute New York art dealer Adam Williams for handling stolen goods after a painting he bought at Christie’s in London turned out to be Nazi looted art. A successful prosecution could have serious repercussions for the Trade.

UK & US: A NEW Internet auction house, due to launch simultaneously in the United States and the UK on October 15, aims to woo dealers in high value art and antiques by special incentives and simplifying the process.

UK: The Ant Hills of Commerce, 20 x 141/4in (51 x 36cm), Richard Wynne Nevinson’s oil on canvas scene of New York, was consigned from a local deceased estate which had owned it for more than 50 years to George Kidner of Lymington, Hants, where it was estimated at £15,000-20,000.

UK: THE late 19th century cranberry glass and gilt metal ‘self-perpetuating table fountain’, pictured right, was the executive desktop toy of its day.

UK: SEPTEMBER 22 was a big day for English porcelain, it saw the first part of Bernard Watney’s celebrated collection of early English porcelain go under the hammer at Phillips. A packed saleroom filled to capacity with collectors and dealers contested the 447 lots to over £665,000, way past the pre-sale predictions.

US & UK: AN English antiques dealer based in the United States has just helped to reunite Aldenham School with a bronze statue stolen from its grounds 21 years ago.

UK: THE Russians had the brains for a head start in the space race but the Americans possessed the capital to fund a sustained interest in rocket programmes.

UK: THE conviction of a jeweller on a charge of criminal deception has raised serious questions as to the legal obligation of dealers to give a ‘fair price’ for items, even when being offered a bargain.