What are your Favourite Collectables?
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Wemyss pottery was first produced in 1882 by the Fife pottery, which had been making pottery in muted colours since the 18th Century. The pottery enjoyed the patronage of the Grosvenor family who owned Wemyss Castle located nearby. In order to flatter its benefactor the pottery decided to name its new range of wares ‘Wemyss’.
Although the first pieces of Wemyss were self-coloured with no surface decoration, other styles quickly emerged, including white enamelling on glaze. As soon as 1883, under-glaze floral decoration was also appearing, evolving Wemyss ware into the form we recognise today.
Herge, the author of Tintin was born on 22 May 1907 in Etterbeck, Belgium. He developed a passion for art during his school years between 1914 and 1918 in occupied Brussels and he used to fill his schoolbooks with random sketches of the German invaders. He enrolled in the Boy Scouts while studying at college and contributed various illustrations to Scouting magazines.
By 1925 he was fortunate enough to be offered a position at the Catholic newspaper Le XXe Siecle. Here, under the guidance of editor Norbert Wallez, his first cartoon series – Totor – was published, followed by a variety of pieces for a children’s supplement.
Dartington Crystal celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2007 and is one of the few remaining large-scale factories producing handmade quality glassware in the UK. As well as producing their own brand, the factory also manufactures wine glasses, trophies and other decorative glass objects for several international jewellers, whose identities are a closely guarded secret.
In the summer of 2007 Dartington Crystal launched ‘Ember’, a new range of drinkware designed by Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen which is set to do well. However, it is the classic designs from the late 1960s and early 1970s that have stood the test of time and remain the cornerstone of the business.
The sale of sports memorabilia tends to go hand in hand with the fortunes of the particular sport. When England won the Ashes in 2005 the trade in cricket memorabilia was huge, after quite a number of years of low interest.
In May 2007 Graham Budd Auctions set a new world auction record for a complete set of John Wisden’s Cricketers’ Almanacks that sold for a staggering £120,000. Wisden is considered to be the ‘Bible’ of the sport. It was first published in 1864 and is still going strong and is a unique and comprehensive archive of the game’s history, offering records of results, score cards, reports, essays, features and articles. All that information makes it extremely collectable and it is a must for every serious cricket fan.
Advertising tins were used by manufacturers between the 1880s and 1930s. A major part of the appeal of collecting tins is the fact that they are accessible to all ages and can put together a wonderful collection without spending too much money.
Advertising tins also make very useful storage containers for other small collections, such as buttons, badges or coins. If you want to start collecting advertising tins it would be a good idea to start off with the smaller tins. The large, novelty shaped tins like toy liners and steam locomotive shaped tins by such makers as Crawfords Biscuits, or the more desirable shapes by Huntley & Palmer Palmer and Peek Frean fetch quite a lot of money.
West Cornwall is one of the principal centres of the arts, having been home to the Newlyn school of painters, and such contemporary artists as John Miller. It was also the home of Newlyn Copper and in the 20th century sculptors of the calibre of Dame Barbara Hepworth and the father of British studio pottery, Bernard Leach.
This area was also home to four small but highly collectable studio potteries, culminating in a period in the 1970s when they were all situated in the small fishing town of Newlyn. They were Celtic, Leaper, Tremaen and Troika. Whilst the market for Troika and Celtic is fairly well established nowadays, prices for the two lesser known potteries of Tremaen and Leaper can vary considerably in price.
There was great excitement among Star War fans when the Phantom Menace was released in 1999, more than 20 years after the first Star Wars film. Now there was a new hero, a young lad destined to become Darth Vader. This was a prequel and Luke, Leia and Han were not yet thought of. Instead there were characters like the fearsome Darth Maul with a scarlet and black face and devil type-horns. Qui-Gon Jinn, the Jedi Master and a beautiful handmaiden called Padme Naberrie and Queen Amidala were the stars of this movie.
The toys from Phantom Menace soon ousted the memorabilia from the previous trilogy. The shops were filled with mugs, books, rucksacks, pencil cases, sweet tins and mousemats bearing pictures of Darth Maul, Anakin Skywalker, Queen Amidala, Qui-Gon Jin and, most of all, Jar Jar Binks. Jar Jar was everywhere; for a while he seemed to be the ‘in’ figure from the film, the crazy character kids would go for. That’s what the manufacturers had hoped and they were completely wrong. Darth Maul turned out to be the hit and when the first wave of action figures arrived, it soon transpired that there were not enough to meet the demand.
Brannam Pottery is highly sought after and the number of collectors continues to grow. Many people stumble on Brannam as a result of collecting Torquay Pottery and other related ‘Devonshire’ ware.
The name of Brannam has been associated with pottery making in the north Devon town of Barnstaple since the 1840s, but production really took off when Charles Hubert Brannam became involved in the running of his father’s Litchdon Street pottery in 1879. Prior to this Charles had studied both pottery techniques and the history of art.
As we are living in the age of the disposable pen not many people bother to buy attractive fountain pens for day to day use. The market for collectable pens, however, is growing steadily. In May 2000 Bonhams in their Knightsbridge showroom achieved a world record price for a pen. It was Japanese and from around 1928-1930 and realised a price of £56,500, including the buyers premium.
Quill pens, made from the outer wing feathers of various birds, have been around since the 6th century. They were originally produced for writing on parchment or vellum and they were used into the 19th century. Bronze and brass pens were also around centuries earlier. As paper was beginning to be used there was a desperate search for something harder than those quill tips, with their need for frequent recutting and steel was found to be the answer.