Derby

Bimbo The Giant Clown was the beaming white face of Pelham Puppets for decades.

A recent sale at Bamfords of Derby included two outstanding pieces of Chippendale period rococo furniture, both consigned by a local lady who had inherited them from her father.

Several items stolen from Derby Museum and Art Gallery’s storage facility have been recovered and two arrests have been made.

Coins, medals and watches worth over £50,000 have been stolen as a series of museum break-ins continues.

A SET of four George II silver salts by the celebrated Huguenot silversmith Paul de Lamerie (1688-1751) sold for a double-estimate £19,000 at Hansons' latest sale at the Mackworth Hotel in Derby.

ARTHUR Swallow Fairs, organisers of the giant antiques and collectors’ event at the Lincolnshire Showground, will launch two new fairs this year.

• Stoker's great granddaughter puts unique cache up for sale • Collection includes, letters, photos and even table waresA remarkable collection of documents and artefacts relating to the ill-fated British Antarctic Expedition of 1910-13 will be sold by Bamfords of Derby on May 26. The cache of largely unseen material has been entered for sale by the great granddaughter of Edward Archibald McKenzie, a crewman on the expedition supply ship Terra Nova.

THIS previously unrecorded George II mahogany ‘sign post’ angle barometer was made by the gifted mechanician and scientist John Whitehurst (1713-1788) of Derby.

An early Sooty glove puppet used by Harry Corbett for the 1950s children's TV show was sold by at auction by Hanson's at the Mackworth Hotel, Derby, on October 29 for £3100.

BACK in 1936, a Mr Harry Woods decided to refurbish his home, The Gate House in Brighouse, and commissioned a fellow Yorkshireman, working some 50 miles away, to provide interior panelling, window seats and doors, as well as various items of furniture.

It was catalogued as Bow c.1760 but this English porcelain coffee cup seen at Bamfords of Derby on July 25 was identified as belonging to a much rarer class of porcelain associated with Charles Gouyn and a short-lived London concern in St James’s.

Pictured right is a Yongzheng period (1723-1735) egg-yolk yellow ground ‘cranes’ bowl that was offered on the second day of a three-day sale conducted by Bamfords in Derby from September 13-15.

Although a £12,000 oil by Arthur Spooner (1873-1962) was the most expensive entry in the sale at Derby held by Bamfords (15% buyer’s premium) on December 9-10, perhaps the most eye-catching lot was this Lenci dish, right.

On an April morning of this year, Guy Davis, book consultant to Bamfords of Derby, gave an interview on BBC Radio Derby in which he talked about a copy of the first Rupert annual of 1936 that was to be sold at auction later that same day.

RUPERT Toovey launches his huge new saleroom in Sussex in a week, Dreweatt Neate have just completed a major revamp of their Donnington Priory rooms near Newbury and a host of other salerooms around the country have announced new facilities, upgrades and launches. Here we detail some of these changes, which indicate that however concerned many may be about the state of the UK antiques business, there is confidence out there and the determination to prosper through improved service.

UK: WHAT was it about this Bloor Derby cup which attracted attention from as far afield as America and Japan, when it was offered at the Derby salerooms of Neales on December 8?