What are your Favourite Collectables?
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Agatha Christie was a prolific writer and by the age of 67 she had written 57 best sellers and was to attain a career total of 79 crime novels and 19 plays. She also wrote six romantic novels under the pseudonym of Mary Westmacott.
The demand for Agatha Christie collectables just grows and grows. Her old home, Greenway House in Devon, is now owned by the National Trust and the grounds are open to visitors. The house is being restored and the Trust hopes that it will open to visitors in 2009.
There is a worldwide interest in Agatha Christie and not only do new editions and collections of her work appear almost every year, but the collector also has a bewildering choice of TV dramatisations and films to amass as well. Her most famous detective, Hercule Poirot has been brilliantly portrayed for TV by actor David Suchet and many fine dramatisations have been enjoyed by millions of people around the world.
The price of a piece of Star Wars memorabilia can be doubled if the original box, instructions, decal slips and associated paraphernalia are all included. If the item has never been removed from the box it could be very valuable indeed.
While the majority of Star Wars memorabilia collectors are quite happy if the box has been opened, or even if it is missing altogether, the serious Star Wars collector will demand absolute perfection and is prepared to pay fantastic sums for figures and toys in Grade A shop condition. The box has to be as mint and perfect as the toy inside.
Although crested china was once considered to be worthless, there are now several thousand avid collectors in the UK alone – and prices have risen accordingly. The Goss factory in Stoke-on-Trent first produced crested china in the late 1880s, modelling most of their wares on precise historical shapes copied from museums up and down the country.
Seeing the success of the Goss factory many other companies followed suit. They produced a multitude of novelty items up until the 1930s. Some German manufacturers produced souvenirs very cheaply, if somewhat crudely. This led to many outlets to advertise ‘Best English China at Foreign Prices’. Tastes then changed and it is estimated that around 90 per cent of crested china was destroyed – and the remaining 10 per cent relegated to the attic. Crested china started to enjoy a revival during the 1970s, which continues to this day.
From the 19th century and into the 20th century, Whitefriars was arguably Britain’s most innovative glass factory and today it attracts a host of enthusiasts. It has been admired for its astounding simplicity and purity of form. By the beginning of the 20th century Whitefriars was regarded as one of the most creative glassworks in Europe, because of its strong design and good quality.
Each object was handmade and no pieces are exactly the same. There is a wonderful sense of movement in the glass.
Decorative wood ware has been made around Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells since the 1660s but the best known are the mosaic designs developed there in the 19th century.
Local legend has it that in 1606, on discovering the spring that gave birth to Tunbridge Wells, Lord North borrowed a small bowl for tasting purposes. That bowl is said to have been one of the earliest documented pieces of Tunbridge Ware.
Toy theatres, made from paper and mounted on wood or board were a popular form of entertainment in Europe from about 1811. Charles Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson, Charlie Chaplin and Winston Churchill all enjoyed staging a play in a miniature theatre.
The toy theatre has experienced a remarkable revival in recent years. Every year in Germany there is an International Paper Theatre Festival, which attracts participants from all over the world. There is also an annual festival in New York. The biggest museum of toy theatres is in Sweden and original toy theatre producers such as Pollocks are still trading in England.
Some people think wine has only been popular in Britain in recent years, but that is definitely not so. There was serious drinking at Regency dinner parties when the ladies had retired to the drawing room to drink tea and the servants would bring decanters of wine, port and sherry for the gentlemen. Keeping the wines cool was not easy in a room with a blazing fire and lit by dozens of candles. The most simple solution was using a pair of elegant ice buckets, but during large parties and balls they would have used a wooden wine cooler, which could hold a number of bottles and could be stowed away under the table.
Since there has been scent there have been scent bottles, but they first became popular in the mid 18th century. The best quality ones were made of gold, silver, enamel and porcelain, decorated with colourful enamels or gilding. The majority of scent bottles were made of glass, which could be cut, gilded, enamelled and produced in a number of different shapes.
Clear glass would often be cut or faceted to reduce the amount of light reaching the scent inside. Early designs often had a second chamber to accommodate smelling salts. Its corrosive effect on clear glass made opaque or coloured glass more popular, dark blue, emerald, amethyst and ruby being the most desirable and some scent bottles were made in dual colour.
Many people remember the flower fairies as enchanting mythical figures from their childhood, while nowadays we see them on greeting cards and giftware. The Flower Fairies were created by Cicely Mary Barker in 1923, when she had her first series of drawings published in a book. Since then her works have become children’s classics and are sold around the world.
Cicely Mary Barker was born in Croydon, South London in 1895 and being a sickly child she was educated at home. Cicely excelled at pastel drawing and taught herself to paint in oils and watercolours. Her father encouraged her to draw and together they joined the Croydon Art Society in 1908.
Well over a century after he first appeared in print, Sherlock Holmes is still one of the world’s best loved fictional characters. The original stories by Arthur Conan Doyle are always in demand for their intricate plots and portrayal of Victorian London and modern tourists still make their way to Baker Street to have a look [...]