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He has taken rooms in Crows Nest, on the Lower North Shore, and is the only antiques, collectables and art auctioneer located on the North Shore, serving areas from North Sydney, to Manly and Wahroonga.  

David Barsby formerly traded with Gina Lugosi as Barsby & Lugosi Auctioneers, and the firm established itself as a specialist in-house sales auctioneer in the North Shore.

Prior to joining with David Barsby in 2008, Gina Lugosi was a co-founder and decorative arts specialist with  Badgery's Auctioneers & Appraisers and left when the business closed.

Barsby Auctions plans to hold a combination of in-room and house sales on a monthly basis.

The Calyx Porcelain Factory Perth produced domestic and decorated wares from the early 1900's.  It was merged with Bristile and Wunderlich, c.1940's, to later become the Wembley Ware factory.

Decorated Calyx wares are quite rare, due to the fragility of the soft clay.  Calyx employed local and overseas artists to design and decorate their wares,

The McKenzies Auctioneers sale was held on  Tuesday  23rd November (art)  and on Wed 24th November (jewellery & collectables).

Calyx Ware rarely comes onto the market, and although the sale included a Calyx Ware plate decorated with a kookaburra, (est. $500-1,000)  the previous major Calyx Ware piece  was a jardinière sold by the same auction house in December 2009. The jardinière was decorated with four circular  Art Nouveau style bush scenes to the upper section, and sold for $4,830.

Other major lots sold at the November auction included an Australian ostrich egg presentation  casket circa 1869, (Lot 378 )  sold for $25,630, to a Melbourne collector, the obvious home, as it was attributed to the  Melbourne maker, William Edwards. 

Jewellery has long been a staple of McKenzie Auctions, and a Perth  secured the main jewellery lot, a 3.90ct fancy champagne  coloured diamond ring, at $25,630.

The cup (Lot 1 ) is inscribed “The Junius Cup, presented to Robt Fitzgerald, as the winner by his horse Creeper...” while the reverse bears the wording “NSW, Parramatta Racing Fund, October Meeting 1827”.Although the cup bears pseudo-British hallmarks, and a maker’s mark for James Robertson, it is suggested the cup may have been made by Alexander Dick, (c1791-1834), a free settler and silversmith from Scotland, arrived in Sydney from in  1824 and probably initially employed by James Robertson, Sydney's first non-convict silver retailer and also from Scotland,

Later  Dick soon established his own business at 104 Pitt Street as both a retailer and working silversmith.

It is believed the cup was sold to an institution.
 

Patti Sedgwick has over twenty years iof experience in the auction industry, including stints with Lawson’s Auctioneers, Leonard Joel, Bonhams and Goodman and Sotheby’s Australia.

From 1999 to late 2002, Patti was the principle of Sedgwicks Auctioneers in Melbourne, a specialist jewellery auctioneer based in the city centre.

Bonhams have held  two large decorative arts auctions in Sydney, since setting up in Australia in early 2010.

The fisrt sale, The Owston Collection was 1306 lots with no specific section devoted to jewellery.

The second auction held on November 13, 14 and 15 featured 1256 lots, of which only 140 were jewellery.

The portrait, (Lot 456 ) to be offered on Sunday, June 20, had spent many years in an eastern suburbs home until it was sent off to be cleaned and restored. When it returned the owners decided they weren’t so keen on the cleaned up picture and packed it off to auction.

The oval image, on a panel, is 22cm by 18cm and in a matching carved and gilded frame which Colin Vickers says is “definitely 19^th century if not before”.

His research suggests it may be based on another portrait of Cook, perhaps painted as a centenary memento in 1870. Estimate is $1,000 to $1,500.

The mixed sale also offers an interesting leather-bound book of 52 botanical watercolours (Lot 369 ), mostly American flora, with an inscription dated 1857 or 1867 but no legible artist’s signature.

There’s also been overseas interest in a vase (Lot 1 ) and charger (Lot 5 ) by the 1900s Arts & Crafts English pottery firm Della Robbia.