The Sixth Antique Arms Fair incorporating the Park Lane Arms Fair on February 29 will take place in the Novotel at 1 Shortlands, Hammersmith.
Arms and armour specialist Thomas Del Mar, one of the event’s organisers, said: “We have decided to build on the success we have enjoyed at Olympia over the past three years and are now expanding to a space which has almost double that of the Pillar Hall.”
The Novotel has a large exhibition hall incorporating a cafeteria and bar.
Del Mar added: “We have enjoyed the glamorous, and somewhat compact, space of Olympia’s Pillar Hall but a number of visitors were justifiably frustrated by the lack of a communal space for catching up.
“An important part of these fairs is the time it gives dealers, collectors, academics and newcomers to meet up, exchange ideas and talk informally about this distinctive field.”
The fair will continue to be a “dealer-focused event with each table offering objects for sale that can be purchased on the day. We hope to attract more dealers and I am pleased to say we already have a significant number of people committed to this fair.”
There will also be two tables for collecting societies: the Arms and Armour Society and the Historical Breech-loading Smallarms Association.
The fair will host the launch of two books: The Hindu Warrior by Roy Elvis and Anthony Gibbs Murray’s volume on British Gunlock Makers.
