East of England

SALVO, the leading architectural salvage and garden antiques fair, is being repositioned to capitalise on the increasing popularity of reclaimed artefacts among upmarket architects, designers and decorators.

THE unexpected highlight of the sale conducted by Cheffins of Cambridge on June 9-10 came courtesy of this mahogany writing table. Estimated at £4000-6000, it sold at £68,000 (plus 17.5 per cent buyer's premium).

MOST Star Wars aficionados are familiar with the story of the Flintshire pensioner who bought 20 Palitoy action figures for 49p each in 1978 and sold them at Stockton-on-Tees toy specialists Vectis for a small fortune in 2003.

There has been a happy ending to the century-long story of a missing pub sign painted in 1899 by Arts and Crafts artist Walter Crane for the Fox and Pelican pub in the Hampshire village of Grayshott.

ATG No 1871, January 3, 2009, featured a letter from Richard Peskett of the Grayshott Village Archive appealing for information about the whereabouts of the lost original pub sign from the Hampshire village’s only public house, The Fox and Pelican.

The Norwich dealer James Brett is to sell 300 pieces of his stock of English and Continental furniture and decorative items in a single-vendor sale at Sworders of Stansted Mountfitchet on March 9.

WOODBRIDGE, Suffolk saleroom Neal Sons & Fletcher included a small collection of post-War silver by Robert Welch, Gerald Benney and Stuart Devlin in their November 18 sale.

THIS diminutive table seen at Cambridge auctioneers Cheffins on the second day of their September 23-24 sale was a miniature version of the famous circular expanding dining table designed by Robert Jupe of Welbeck Street, London.

THE dealer who bounced a cheque at Durrants Auction Rooms, reported in last week's ATG has come forward to say it was a 'hiccup' and the bill will be paid.

DURRANTS Auction Rooms have issued an alert about a man claiming to be an antiques dealer from Belgium, who has recently bounced a cheque for nearly £3500 at their rooms.

THE Norfolk-based auctioneers of fine modern and antique guns, Holt’s, have signed a promotional deal with Land Rover that sees them become ambassadors for the all-terrain vehicles.

There were local, or at least county, connections when this large linocut print, ‘Church and Thunderstorm’ by Edward Bawden (1903-1989) was offered by Essex auctioneers Sworders at their spring Country House sale.

POLICE have asked for information about a theft that took place at Cavendish Antiques and Interiors in Suffolk in the early hours of April 11.

A BANKRUPT Suffolk antiques dealer who went on the run to Bulgaria after swindling creditors in a £1.9m fraud has been jailed for ten years.

Among the highlights of the sale conducted by Sworders of Stansted Mountfitchet on February 17 was this William IV patent mahogany library armchair, with carved acanthus leaf sides, turned lobed front legs and outswept back supports.

Today Robert Baden-Powell is best known as the founder of the Boy Scout movement in 1908, but in the Edwardian era his name was synonymous with the Boer War, and specifically the 217 wretched days from October 1899 to May 1900.

Latest results now prompt a rethink in London on English porcelain as East Anglian enthusiasts take pride in collecting local factory’s output.

This japanned lacquer case to this Georgian bracket clock was stolen from a restorer in Norfolk on October 15. The case, which had been restored, is slightly larger than is normal, accommodating a musical movement.

Whilst perhaps better known for selling reclaimed building materials, T.W. Gaze of Diss in Norfolk consistently attract lots of a more decorative nature in their five architectural sales each year. Their August 16 sale included this very fine quality early 18th century marble study of a boy holding aloft a bearded mask.

THE Standsted Mountfitchet saleroom Sworders are to sell the contents of Lancotbury Manor, a timber-framed Tudor manor house near Dunstable that was the former home of David Cochrane and Bernard Gulley.