Hampshire

A privately sourced collection of jewellery boosted this first dispersal of the year in these Hampshire rooms at George Kidner on 9 January – “the bulk of the rest of the material was just good stock pieces”, said auctioneer Andrew Reeves.

Trade show strength in surprise bids on fresh-to-market pieces. If September 11 was a watershed in modern history, the way forward, as far as Hampshire auctioneers Dreweatt Neate were concerned, seems to be a retreat to how things used to be – good quality material from local private sources, the trade ready to buy it and one or two old-time sleepers.

A RECORD turnout on July 13 gave the Hampshire auctioneers Jacobs & Hunt reason to hope that the market is finally beginning to perk up although it was more specialist items, rather than general furniture, which were of most interest.

THE Law Fine Art sale at Southington House, a country house near Overton, Hampshire, had everything you might expect to find in a home lived in by one family for over a century.

UK: Phillips have announced the closure of two more of their provincial salerooms, Guildford and Ringwood, as part of their ongoing and extensive restructuring programme.

AS THE Tour de France came to an end, this 1870 Eugène Meyer de Paris Vélocipède sold on its top estimate for £26,000 (plus 15 per cent buyer’s premium) at Brooks’ Summer Vintage sale at the National Motor Museum in Beaulieu on July 27.

UK: POOR old Neville Chamberlain. He always takes the blame for all but delivering up the British people to Adolf Hitler, when perhaps he should really be seen merely as one of those Edwardian throwbacks like Eden who believed, quite rightly, that there was no aspect of a fascist dictatorship which could threaten the lifestyle of the English upper classes.

UK: Come Burns Night on January 25, someone will be paying homage to the Scottish poet with more than haggis and a dram.

UK: A GEORGE III shell-inlaid oval knife box and a 19th century oak and 7ft 6in (2.29m) high mahogany crossbanded longcase clock with a painted face signed Rogers, Dudley, each attracted a trade bid of £1600 to jointly lead this monthly catalogued sale of 504 lots in Hampshire.