70 17th April 2010
letters to the editor
We need answers over handling of Railton case
SIR – I am sure that many people will be quite bewildered by the saga of the birds’ eggs offered for sale by Jim Railton (last
week’s front page).
I take it that following the court case
there are several people who feel very satisfied at having prevented such a heinous crime, and that the world is now a safer place!
After all, the eggs were not actually
sold, there was only the intent to do so, and the police, Crown Prosecution Service, RSPB, and the sad person that decided to “tip off” the RSPB must all feel very smug at seeing Jim Railton dragged through the courts. If they had waited until he had sold them they could possibly have had the satisfaction of seeing the magistrate sentence him to penal servitude for life. What is also interesting is that the owner of the eggs is, surely, the vendor and as such it is difficult to understand why no charges were brought against him – after all ignorance is no defence. This must bring into question the legal status of auctioneers acting as agent for a seller. If I was to own a similar collection I could take them to an auction house to sell, in the hope that they were not aware of the law and that the sale is
successfully completed. If the inclusion in the sale was
reported to the authorities it would be the auctioneer that would be prosecuted and not me.
I am not saying that the owner should have been prosecuted, but that this whole sorry business could surely have been dealt with differently and one must have pity for Jim RaIlton – and also for the lady that, a couple of weeks ago, was guilty of the dastardly crime of selling a goldfish to a child, a crime for which she was fined £1000 and tagged. Has the whole world gone mad? We see on TV perpetrators of real crimes being let off with a caution or, at worst, being given a slap on the wrist. In the hope that the public-spirited person that tipped off the RSPB is an ATG reader, I would like to invite him or her to explain through the Letters page why it was necessary to do so, and not simply ask the auctioneer to withdraw the offending items.
A lot of questions need answering, and I sincerely hope that Jim Railton appeals against the fine.
Peter Walton
Buckingham
Where’s natural justice?
SIR – I was horrified to read the ATG headlines of the conviction of auctioneer Mr Jim Railton over the sale of £30-40 worth of birds’ eggs, probably assembled well over 80 years ago.
How can this be natural justice when art works made out of ivory are readily available at auction? The decision to prosecute Mr Railton was quite ridiculous and both the police and the RSPB should exercise better judgement. Surely a warning to Mr Railton before the sale would have been appropriate. Nobody would think that he would have risked all this for £4 commission in the event of a successful sale! Alas, common sense is
editorial@antiquestradegazette.com or write to: The Editor, ATG 115 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2H 8AF.
something that the police and RSPB just do not do.
The court that passed down this fine of £1000 was completely ‘over the top’. An announcement by the court highlighting the law over this would have sufficed. Perhaps someone can enlighten us all on how, despite the ivory ban, it is still being sold at auction and birds’ eggs that were assembled 80 years ago can evoke such a severe and disproportionate sentence.
David L. Mason
Chairman
MacConnal-Mason & Sons
The Editor reserves the right to amend correspondence where necessary for publication
ivan macquisten
editorial@antiquestradegazette.com
We’re anything but inactive at Portobello
SIR – R. Havenhand (Letters, ATG No 1934) should come more often to the Portobello Antiques Market. I would like to take him by the hand and show him the “real Portobello Antiques Market”, the jewel in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea’s crown.
As a founder member (in 1985) of the Portobello Antique Dealers Association (PADA), I strongly object to R. Havenhand’s suggestion that we suffer from “change avoidance”. We have vigorously supported change when it was for the good of the antiques section. 1. We encouraged the council to implement a system whereby stallholders in the council-run street antiques section signed an agreement that their goods are at least over 50 years old. 2. We have the highest
concentration of specialist antique dealers in Britain. I have always encouraged traders in my own field, e.g. antique textiles and lace to join us in the Portobello antiques market. 3. Every year (except in the year when we moved our office) the PADA has published a brochure (with our Code of Conduct on the back page) which is available free of charge. The list of our involvement in support of antique dealers is endless. The PADA never received a penny
My Volvo? – 282,859 miles and counting
SIR – Following a recent conversation about cars with a high mileage, my trusted old Volvo 960 Estate has 282,859 miles on the clock as of this morning, and I hope it will last well beyond the 300,000 mark.
It has been suggested by more fashion-conscious relatives and exhibitors that it’s time I got myself another car, but I really love my battleship grey Aurora, named after the cruiser in St Petersburg. It may not be the world’s most fuel-
efficient vehicle, but I need it to keep going, and it is such a joy to drive.
Ingrid Nilson
Director
The Antiques Dealers Fair Limited ■ Editor’s note: Can anyone beat that?
from the RBK&C Council, even when we lobbied the RBK&C Council for a subsidy to run our information stand. In the meantime, I shall follow Sir Winston Churchill’s (who lived in the Royal Borough of Kensington) advice: “I am an optimist, it doesn’t seem too much use being anything else”. The Portobello antiques market will survive. Yes, and even thrive!
Anne Swift
Antique Lace Dealer Portobello Antiques Market
More clarity, now we need more balance
SIR – I was very interested to read Mr Kleanthous’s long letter about Portobello in last week’s ATG, which was triggered by my letter in the previous issue. Hopefully, I can be forgiven for thinking that the furore was about the Portobello antiques trade rather than the market generally; after all, I did say that I had been reading Antiques Trade
Gazetteand not Greengrocer’s Weekly or Tat Monthly.
Whatever, his letter gives me and,
hopefully, other readers, a broader and better understanding of the problems he sees which seem to be more about the market generally than just the antiques traders. I thank him for the clarification. I do find it slightly odd that he (and others) find it unacceptable that property owners in the area should be entitled to maximise their income from rents etc whilst the traders presumably do precisely that when selling their wares.
I am not convinced by “hard luck” stories about traders not being able to afford rents. Surely any business must be able to meet its basic costs, otherwise it should not be trading in a commercial market such as Portobello. Presumably new businesses moving into and alongside the street market will bring in new money and new opportunities. Perhaps you could persuade somebody to write something for ATGsetting out the other side of the story so that we have a more balanced view.
R. Havenhand
Nantwich, Cheshire
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