The Antique Marks Blog

For the first time eBay have been held responsible for the items sold on its websites.

A FRENCH court has ruled that eBay are directly responsible for what is sold on their website and has ordered ebay to pay $30,000 to luxury goods designer Hermes for the their role in the sale of three counterfeit handbags.

The French judge found eBay directly accountable for the sale of counterfeit items by one of its customers. eBay maintains that it removes listings found to be fraudulent and argues that the liability for those listings is on the seller.

“By selling Hermes bags and branded accessories on the eBay.fr site, and by failing to act within their powers to prevent reprehensible use of the site,” the seller and eBay “committed acts of counterfeiting and imitation of French brand names … to the detriment of Hermes international,” the ruling said.

eBay has said that its Verified Rights Owner Program (VeRO) is in place to make it easy for intellectual property owners to report abuse. The company has stated that the “court ruling relates to past issues of seller verification.”

“The court acknowledged that eBay has closed these loopholes referencing the anti-counterfeiting measures spearheaded by the VeRO scheme which brings rights owners and eBay together to tackle the menace of counterfeit goods.”

eBay was ordered to pay the fine jointly with the seller who put the bags up for sale. eBay was also ordered to post the ruling on its French homepage for three months. Other designer brands have cases pending against eBay for sales of counterfeit goods including Louis Vuitton, Dior Couture, and L’Oreal.

The Court ruling supports the luxury goods firms and will challenge the framework on which eBay have built a multi-billion pound business. Legal decisions forcing eBay to vet goods prior to being uploaded could prove a serious threat to their operation, which process millions of items for sale each day.

After their anouncement on 15th April of the death of eBay live auctions, no high street auction house will be able to offer their catalogues to eBays 200-million plus audience after December 31 2008.

For several years, eBay have worked with a small number of independent auction providers including Artfact, icollector and LiveAuctioneers who then work with traditional auction houses to supply goods for eBay Live Auctions. eBay also allowed companies such as GoAntiques to run virtual auctions with no auction room sales associated with them.

But, unlike those that buy into the ebay audience, there are many auction houses that use the internet in there own way, to attract interest from around the world.

Take Bellmans of Billingshurst, West Sussex who held an antiques sale on March 26-28.

“The sale was viewed on our website by nearly 9000 people in 45 different countries around the world, with bids from India, China and New Zealand.”

The highest price in the auction was paid for a pair of late 19th century Scottish satinwood cabinets – which belonged to the family of Sir Donald Currie, the famous founder of the Union-Castle Shipping Line and MP for Perthshire. They fetched £6,900*

So, unlike those auctioneers and businesses who spent the last five years building ebay’s equity and who built a dependence on ebay’s good will; the traditional auctioneers who moved with the times and invested in their own web presence are seeing good returns on that investment.

For those that have yet to do so they would do well to read how you can build a web presence that works

Oh! and Bellmans next sale will take place on April 23, 24 and 25 – for further information, call 01403 700858, or visit www.bellmans.co.uk.

Tennants Auctioneers of North Yorkshire, UK, have secured an entire Mouseman commission for sale in July 2008.

Tennants Summer Catalogue sale (July 17-18), includes the complete fixtures and fittings of the Senior Library at Leeds Girls High School, which was completed by the Kilburn workshop and bears Thompson’s famous carved mouse signature motif.

The Leeds school moving and no preservation order was ever placed on the Mouseman interior. It includes 16 tables and 87 chairs, freestanding and fitted bookcases, an alcove seat, radiator covers and wall panelling.

The schools main door and frame will also be offered for sale, inscribed

The gift of a friend for the benefactor who paid Thompson £1222 for his work in 1934.

Robert Thompson was born in 1876 and dedicated his life to the craft of carving and joinery in English Oak.

He taught himself how to use the traditional tools of the trade and by 1919 he was experimenting with his own ideas and producing furniture based on the English styles of the 17th Century.

The famous mouse symbol, found on every item crafted by Robert Thompson has an uncertain history and the story told by Robert Thompson himself is that one of his craftsmen remarked that,

“We’re all as poor as church mice”

Thompson then immediately carved a mouse on the church screen he was working on.

The ‘mousemans’ creations continually prove popular at auction houses everywhere and the Tennants sale is predicted to raise upwards of £100,000.

Get your bids in early……. Current Tennants Sales

A rare August Bohm goblet set a house record of £64,000 at Wottons auction rooms in the UK Cotswolds.

The glass goblet described as a companion work to an August Bohm masterpiece, was consigned to Wottons by a a local Stroud family and as Wottons researched the glass goblet it emerged that they had a second version of the 19th century Bohemian glass engravers 23in (58cm) goblet currently on loan to the Victoria and Albert Museum.

The goblet at Wottons varies slightly in outline and detail but is the same size and featured a panel of a similarly fine engraved battle scene depicting Alexander the Great defeating the Persians. It also carried the same French inscription, La Vertu Surmonte Toute Obstacle, as the V&A’s goblet and Bohm’s engraved signature Gravirt V A Bohm aus Meistersdorf I Bohem im Jahre 1845, indicating that it was produced five years later.

The vendor stated the vase had been in their family since the inter-War period and before offering it for sale it had stood, filled with ping-pong balls, on a sideboard.

Wottons Auction Rooms catalogue entry stating :

A very fine quality 19th century Bohemian glass vase and cover with central relief engraved panels of a battle scene after Lebrun’s painting depicting Alexander The Great defeating the Persians, with etched inscription “La Vertu Surmonte Tout Obstacle ” to reverse and with further inscription below panel “Gravirt V A Bohm aus Meistersdorf I Bohmen im Jahre 1845, 58cm total height (the vase believed to be a version of the example in the Victoria and Albert Museum, hitherto in the Broadfield House Glass Museum) £2000-3000

During the sale interest in the room stalled at a few thousand pounds, but a prolonged battle began between two telephone bidders, one a London dealer and one a local dealer. The London buyer eventually took the final price to £64,000, a house record for Wottons.

August Bohm (c.1812-90) died in poverty, but was considered the best exponent of his craft in his day.

The goblet in the V&A was once owned by the 19th century English glass maker and writer Apsley Pellatt, who pictured it on the frontispiece of his key 1849 publication Curiosities of Glass Making and described it and its creator as:

“A most beautifully engraved vase by a Bohemian artist is in the possession of the author; the workmanship is even more elaborate than that of the Portland Vase; the subject is from Le Brun’s painting of the conquest and final overthrow of the Persians at the battle of Arbela, by Alexander the Great. For depth of workmanship and artistic execution, as a modern intaglio engraving, this vase is unrivalled.”

Pellatt’s praise was mirrored by others and the V&A goblet was so highly rated that plaster casts were taken from it and kept in Bohemia to encourage other engravers.

It was announced last week that a British actor, Thomas Sangster, had won the role to play Tintin on the big screen adaptation of Hergés adventures of TinTin and interest in Tintin memorabilia has never been higher, with a Paris auction house recently selling an original artwork from the popular comic book for the record price of €764,200 ( over £500,000 ).

Described as a museum piece, the painting by Tintin’s Belgian creator Hergé, whose real name was Georges Remi, was part of one-off sale of 650 comic originals which raised a total of $5.4 million on the day.

Hergé died in 1983 and the 1932 oil painting by the author and artist was the art for Tintin in America, the third adventure in the long-running series. It features the boy reporter wearing a Stetson and a red bandana, with his faithful dog Snowy at his feet and tomahawk wielding indians behind.

Georges Rémi, under the nom de plume Hergé, established the clean, expressive style known as ligne claire (clear line) in the late 1940s. However, the record setting painting reflects the looser, rougher style of his earlier work.

Tintin remains the most popular comic book personality in French culture and the news that director Steven Spielberg is casting actors for a three-part Tintin film series beginning in 2009, is sure to increase the popularity of Tintin memoribilia worldwide.

So, get up to the attic and find that old trunk with all your Tintin comic books and annuals, there’s never been a better time to list them on ebay ……..

The Antique Marks Blog is live and online …….

We can only commend Wordpress 2.5 for the ease of installation and the simple functionality behind the system, and we now look forward to blogging on everything antique, including auction updates and new sections we will add to the main site.

Our layout may change slightly depending on what we include here, but basically we’re pleased to be up and running….. watch this space !!