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Major two-day catalog auctions next weekend will offer a study in the contrasting styles of American furniture and appointments. Both sales will feature items expected to bring five-figure prices. Beginning at 6 p.m. next Friday, Pook & Pook Inc. will offer more than 300 lots of 18th- and 19th-century furniture, art and accessories at the first session of a 900-lot sale that includes Pennsylvania cabinetry, quilts, and other local crafts, as well as furniture from other regions.

The price of gas has soared, which means filling up these days requires emptying out your wallet. But while you can't control the price of gas, you do have many ways to lower your car insurance premiums. The following suggestions can help reduce your costs. If you and your partner have two cars but need only one for a long-distance commute, then insure one car for higher mileage and keep the other car's mileage low enough to qualify for a discount. Check in with your insurer if you've recently retired or have started your own home-based business.

Health insurance premiums have risen faster than wages in Pennsylvania over the last six years, according to a report released yesterday by Families USA, a nonprofit Washington consumer group that advocates for affordable health care. But Rose Fasciocco, who runs the books for her husband's plumbing business in Springfield Township, Delaware County, doesn't need a report to tell her that. "We used to cover our employees 100 percent," she said. "We wanted to set ourselves apart that way. But when we got our last increase, we had to start asking for a contribution.

A handful of former Unisys workers stands to save hundreds of dollars on monthly medical premiums because of a federal ruling against the Blue Bell company. At issue: In 1992, retirees sued Unisys after it went back on commitments to pay them lifetime medical benefits. It forced them onto a newer plan that made them pay increasingly more toward post-retirement medical premiums. The new plan was structured so that by 1996, the retirees paid all of their monthly premiums, typically more than $349 out of pocket with the help of Medicare, and more than $870 without it. Unisys countered that the language of its retirement plan permitted the company to change the terms at will.

Tylenol swallows Sudafed. Neutrogena absorbs Lubriderm. Imodium ingests Rolaids. The huge health-care conglomerate, Johnson & Johnson, is about to expand its empire with its $16.6 billion cash acquisition of Pfizer Inc.'s over-the-counter brands, the companies said yesterday. In a health-care equivalent to General Motors Corp.'s buying a division of Ford Motor Co., the acquisition at a premium price - if approved by federal regulators - would solidify Johnson & Johnson's domination of the consumer-health business even as the company restructures current operations and prescription-drug development, analysts said.

Shares of NCO Group Inc. rose 36 percent yesterday after the Horsham company said its chief executive officer had made an $889 million offer to buy the business. The debt-collection company's lackluster earnings growth in recent years has weighed down the stock price, making it an attractive takeover candidate, especially given its ability to generate cash, analysts said. The $27.50-per-share offer by Michael J. Barrist, NCO's chairman and chief executive since 1986, and a partner, One Equity Partners II L.P., represents a 44 percent premium to Monday's closing price of $19.05.

The race among traditional pharmaceutical companies to market new biological drugs showed urgency yesterday when AstraZeneca P.L.C. offered a 67 percent premium for a British biotech firm. London-based AstraZeneca, with U.S. headquarters near Wilmington, disclosed its plans to acquire Cambridge Antibody Technology Group P.L.C. just days after Merck & Co. Inc. said it would buy two small biotech firms with which it had been partnering. The acquisitions could help both companies expand the internal biotechnology research capacity some analysts say they lack.

A couple of years ago, officials at R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. realized they were missing a big boat. Other companies that sold indulgences - makers of coffee, wine, beer, chocolates, pastries - had figured out how to induce customers to pay a lot more for high-end products. But cigarettes were still aimed overwhelmingly at the masses. Where was the cigarette equivalent of a Cinnamon Dolce Latte? That's where Gyro Worldwide Advertising Inc., an edgy Old City marketing firm, came in. Asked to "re-create the smoking experience" for the "super premium tier," they worked with R.J. Reynolds to fashion everything about its new Marshall McGearty line of cigarettes - from the flavors to the design of the only place where they're sold: the controversial new Marshall McGearty Tobacco Lounge in Chicago.

The billboard that asked the last doctor leaving Pennsylvania to turn off the lights is gone. No hospital trauma center here threatened to close its doors on New Year's Eve because its emergency-room doctors couldn't get liability insurance. And the heated arguments among doctors, hospital administrators and malpractice lawyers have cooled. Five years after the latest medical-malpractice-insurance "crisis" began to roil Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and other parts of the nation, a balance has returned to the system here.

As SEPTA workers get ready to contribute to their health-insurance coverage for the first time, other employers have been choosing similar ways to shift some of the massive expense to their personnel. The era when companies picked up the bill for their workers' health insurance is fading fast under the relentless pressure of rising medical costs. And executives are exploring how employees can shoulder some of the financial burden. Should a worker making $30,000 a year contribute the same amount toward health insurance as a manager making $300,000?