British Antique Dealers' Association

Under the motto, 'Ars non habet inimicum nisi ignorantiam' (Art has no enemy but ignorance) and the medallion portrait of Benvenuto Cellini, we learn that BADA, the leading representative body for the antiques trade in the UK, was founded way back in 1918. (By the way, a mistake in entering the URL, using '.co.uk' rather than '.org', will take you to the British Audio Dealers' Association).

SPECIAL FEATURES

Members introduces BADA dealers in several different ways, sorted either alphabetically, or by location or by specialism. The overlapping of the indexing system leads to some confusion. If, for instance, you decide to search by specialism, say jewellery, and then select one business from the list (which admittedly appears very promptly), you find that your chosen business refuses to come up singly. Instead, a lengthy locality list is presented, with the names of the principal towns from which to select the right one. If you happen not to have noted the town where your chosen dealer was located you now have to use the 'back' button to check. And even then, when you identify the right town, you now obtain the list of all the dealers in that town, so you have to scroll through until you find the one specialising in jewellery. There should be a simpler method of getting at this information.

BADA takes you to a photograph of current chairman, the Rt Hon Peter Brooke, and to a list of other officers such as council members and regional representatives. Much more useful is BADA Fairs, which turns out to be the core of the website, offering details of the BADA Antiques and Fine Art Fair and lists of exhibitors, mostly with live onward links. It turns out that the event was voted Fair of the Year in 2000, so the 2001 Fair, (see under Events) has a high standard to maintain.