Record sales? Or record flops? The paddles waved by buyers at Christie's and Sotheby's sales in Hong Kong next week are one good way of testing the waters of regional financial stability.
Market watchers will be waiting with interest to discover the fate of the fancy pink diamond with a Christie's estimate of $8 million or the extremely rare early Ming blue and white basin which Sotheby's hopes will sell for more than $4.5 million.
Apart from those who want to buy, these auction previews offer art lovers some of the best opportunities to see important works of art in Hong Kong this spring, after the collapse earlier this month of Tresors in Singapore and Hong Kong's Art and Antiquities Fair.
Head down to the Furama Hotel before Monday evening for the Sotheby's preview. As well as that rare basin and other special blue and white ware from the Ming and Qing dynasties, highlights include a selection of modern and contemporary art. As with the Christie's sale at the nearby J W Marriott hotel (viewings today and tomorrow) there are many works by Zhang Daqian, the auctioneers' most beloved Chinese artist, most of whose work commands five if not six-figure bids.
Not everything is so expensive: snuff bottle collectors can tour a few private collections of these tiny flasks that are as highly decorated as they are useless (when did you last see a snuff sniffer in Hong Kong?). See the back page for auction times.
Delicious Greene on stage Roger Lloyd-Pack was once revealed as Britain's 'most unlikely sex symbol'. The British actor who has played the gormless Trigger in the successful TV comedy Only Fools and Horses for 15 years, claimed he has often been chased by groupies with lustful fantasies about men in donkey jackets.
'Women often rush up to me and plant a smacker full on the lips,' he apparently told the Sunday Mirror.
