The team at Smiths Auction Rooms in Newent are now looking forward to their forthcoming Spring Antiques and Collectables sale on March 27-18. The sale includes a wide range of antiques including furniture, paintings, ceramics, glass and collectables as well as a special section for Silver, Jewellery and Gold.

Smiths are keen to gather together an outstanding selection of good quality entries for their March catalogue to meet the current high demand. Even some of the slower areas of the market, such as ceramics and furniture, are showing signs of improvement and a number of antique dealers have reported rising demand in many areas of business.

Antique jewellery in particular is proving very dynamic as one of the top auction room performers, with the fashion for collecting items such as brooches, necklaces and rings showing no sign of easing off. This trend has been popular for a couple of years now as buyers continue to search out items on a particular theme, material or era.

Popular collecting subjects include Georgian mourning jewellery, enamels, micro mosaics, animals and particular designers such as Georg Jensen or Miriam Haskell. Many buyers wear their jewellery, whilst others choose to make them into an attractive display such as brooches pinned on a cushion, or larger items laid out in a vitrine table or tabletop display cabinet. Most of these buyers search for the items of their desire using the auction online bidding platforms and then bid from anywhere in the country - or even worldwide.

These online companies provide excellent marketing techniques which channel items that you might be interested in straight into your inbox. Smiths’ auctions then make the most of this by providing buyers with an efficient and very reasonably priced postage service which they run at cost, rather than seeking to make a profit. This then increases hammer prices which is of benefit to everyone!

All this makes it the perfect opportunity to sell any jewellery items which could have been inherited - but you know that you are never going to wear. Even some costume jewellery can make surprising prices with antique paste sometimes selling for hundreds of pounds.

Of course the highest prices are paid for good quality diamond jewellery and semi-precious stones such as emeralds, rubies and sapphires. Other stones which are popular include opals, moonstones, peridot, citrines and turquoise. Auction room buyers are often seeking out the unusual and at present coloured stones, cabochon cut stones and bezel settings are very in vogue. However Smiths buyers are always very excited by large diamonds and in general private buyers tend to prefer modern and more wearable jewellery than the trade.

Silver is also selling like wildfire with Smiths last extensive silver section only having four or five items left unsold, with most items leaving their estimates far behind. Small collectable items of silver are extremely popular such as little decorative boxes, miniature pin cushions, caddy spoons, christening mugs and so forth. There are of course collectors for specialized items such as early silver with rare hallmarks from towns such as Exeter, Glasgow or Newcastle.

To enter items in Smiths March sale please telephone 01531 821776 for an appointment. Staff are always very happy to discuss the type of pieces you may have and if you are unsure if they are of value then they will be delighted to have a look just in case there is something there of interest. For further information please visit www.smithsnewentauctions.co.uk