WriteAntiques

By Christopher Proudlove ©

Blue Children? No, not some new kind of genetically modified offspring but a collectable that I had seen before but never paid much attention to or even heard it termed as such.

See a slideshow of Blue Children patterns here.

Fact is, not a lot is known about this particularly distinctive brand of Royal Doulton pottery, but faced with a collection of five pieces of the stuff ranged attractively prior to their auction, it’s hard to ignore.

So, ever keen to expand my knowledge, I spoke to the owner who had decided to start to thin out his collection in an upcoming sale.

He told me the five pieces represented the less important 25 per cent of what he owned.

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By Christopher Proudlove ©

CONFESSION: until recently, I had dismissed contemporary silversmith Stuart Devlin as the maker of quirky novelties  sold for lots of money as “limited editions” either by mail order or else in shops too exclusive for their own good.

You know the kind of things I mean. The Sunday colour supplements are full of them. Then I saw the massive centrepiece pictured here.

For a start, Devlin is primarily a designer, not a maker, and it was he who conceived this amazing, almost futuristic three-section candelabrum.

See a slidewho ow Devlin silver here.

A commission from none other than the late Duke and Duchess of Westminster,

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By Christopher Proudlove ©

Oh how I love compliments! Thanks to "Jules and Andy" who posted this email:

Hi Chris

Just recently my partner and I made our first ever auction purchase on a picture of two quirky little owls.  We fell in love with it straight away but had no idea who the painter was.  After acquiring this little treasure we began to research it to find out more about it.  We came across your article on H B Neilson and were warmed by your enthusiasm for his work.  We now believe it to be one of his pieces and just wanted to send you a photograph of the picture in gratitude for all the research you have done on Harry and of course show that people still do appreciate his talent (even though we had no clue who he was!).

Thank You

No, Jules and Andy, thank you! . Read about Harry Neilson here - perhaps you’ll catch the collecting bug.

By Christopher Proudlove ©

WriteAntiques is all about spreading knowledge about old stuff, so when  René van Kralingen  and his wife, Barbara, contacted me, I was only too happy to help.

René writes: We’re proud collectors of Velsen pottery (the polychrome kind 1940’s - 1960’s). Maybe you could post our blog on your site too ? It’s hard to find anything on Velsen pottery on the Internet. Kindest regards, René.

According to René’s blog, There’s not much to be found about Velsen Polychrome Porcelain (polychroom porselein) on the Internet…..and that is too bad.

So, let’s help out here folks.

According to René

At  the end of the 1920’s Eelke Snel (21 years old) and Koen Mertens (31 years old) started a ceramics factory in Velsen-north under the name “Pottery Kennemerland”. Eelke Snel started out as a help in making the moulds at the Amphora factory in Oegstgeest.
From there he started working at St. Lukas in Utrecht. Then on the 20th of may 1920 he, Koen Mertens, Jan van Ham and Cees Muyens started a new pottery under the name “De vier paddelstoelen” (The four mushrooms). This didn’t last very long and in December of the same year Eelke and Koen started their own company in Velsen.
This didn’t seem to be the right combination, because only four years later Eelke went on alone. Eelke tried to make a cheap but beautiful kind of pottery and succeeded , because shortly after this a lot of workers joined the factory. The first designs were hand painted with squares on a cream coloured and gray background.
When the designer Carl Gellings came into the picture, the simple designs turned a bit more to art. In the years to come the designs changed to more delicate objects.
In 1943 – during the second world war – the factory was ordered by the Germans to move. The factory moved to Sassenheim and changed the name to “Velsen”. There they started out with the old moulds, but soon came up with other forms of pottery, porcelain and ceramics.

Potterie Kennemerland, Velsen 1920-1924
Kennemer Pottenbakkerij, Velsen 1924-1929
N.V. Kennemer Potterij, Velsen 1929-1932
E. Snel voorheen N.V. Kennemer Potterij, Velsen 1933-1936
Kunstaardewerkfabriek Velsen, Velsen 1936-1942
Keramiekfabriek Velsen, Sassenheim 1942-2002

So please, anyone with any further information about this charming and highly decorative porcelain, do let René and me know.  Numerous Brownie points to anyone who can help

By Christopher Proudlove ©

THE FIRST “antique” I ever bought was a set of horse brasses attached to a black leather strap which, as a feckless boy, I thought my mother might quite like for her birthday present. Truth be told, of course, I liked them more than she did.

See a slideshow of The Casimir Collection

It was sometime before I learned what she already knew: the horse brasses were reproduction (that is fakes)so their attractiveness quickly diminished and I vowed never to be fooled again. Ah well, we can all hope …

In those days, real brass and copper antiques were worth a small fortune by comparison with today. I remember attending a house contents sale in the 1970s where two sisters and their brother could not agree on how the possessions of their late parents should be shared out.

In the event, the brother, who was clearly better off than his sisters, paid huge sums for anything he fancied, while buyers like me could only stand and watch.

I say better off, but as a beneficiary of his parents’ estate, any monies raised from the

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By Christopher Proudlove ©

THE TOAST is … a new year of collecting opportunity.

Another 12 months in which to indulge one’s passion, splurge yet more cash on knickknacks and fripperies and generally fill walls and any remaining flat surfaces with completely useless objects that you simply cannot live without.

But then you’re a true collector, addicted to a hobby that has neither rhyme nor reason. You hunt out stuff that is old and therefore hard to find and when you find it, the red mist returns …

Good for you, I say. But why do you collect?

Click here to see some suggestions

Do you collect to a plan or pattern? Do you follow the crowd and collect what’s currently in fashion, or do you set the trend and buy for love … or for money? And anyway, does it matter?

I don’t pretend to have the answers, but having watched the fine art auction market at close quarters for the last 12 months (actually, the last 20 years) I think I know what’s in, what’s out and what’s up and coming. Here’s my selection.

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By Christopher Proudlove ©

THE Dandy’s barrel-chested, be-stubbled, cowpie-guzzling Cactusville cowboy Desperate Dan was easily my favourite, but I was horrified to learn that he celebrates his 70th birthday this month. Yikes that makes me feel ancient.
    Yup, it’s true. Still entertaining young (and old) readers all over the world, The Dandy is the world’s longest-running comic.
    The first issue featured the five foot tall feline, Korky the Cat, on the front cover and inside were strips staring such memorable characters as Keyhole Kate, Hungry Horace, and the great Desperate Dan.

See a slideshow © DC Thomson & Co. Ltd. 2007

    Tucked inside it was a free gift, an "Express Whistler", and it hit the newsstands on Friday December 4, 1937.
    It cost 2d (0.83 of a penny). In an auction in October 2004 that sent comic collectors crazy, a copy of Issue 1, complete with its free gift, sold for a staggering £20,350.
    Was it an investment? Probably. This remains the highest price ever paid for a single comic in Britain.

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By Christopher Proudlove ©

I’M NOT sending any Christmas cards this year. Not only do they cost a fortune,  considering they’re just bits of folded card, but with the added cost of the postage, I decided to save my money.

Instead, my New Year resolution is to add to my collection of Victorian Christmas cards, some of which are pictured here.

Click here for a Christmas card slideshow

Some friends of ours have a lovely Christmas tradition of their own. Instead of sending their family members a new Christmas card each year, the same small collection of "antique" cards gets circulated among them, each person receiving a different one than the previous year.

Rather than being chucked into the waste recycling bin, or chopped up to make gift tabs (which is another useful money-saving tip) our friends’ vintage cards are carefully stored away for a year and then brought out to be posted again for a new round of festive cheer.

I’m afraid I wouldn’t risk the hazards of the postal service. Not that vintage Christmas cards

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By Christopher Proudlove ©

THERE’LL be no Wiis in my house this Christmas thank you very much. We watched them being demonstrated at the launch by Nintendo PR girls thrusting, parrying and gesticulating in front of a widescreen TV.

See a pop-up slideshow

It immediately made us wonder how long it would be before one of them let the thing slip, sending it crashing through the screen. Wiis don’t have a wrist strap for nothing, but if I was the parent of a youngster expecting one from Santa this Christmas, I be taking out extra insurance.

Oh for the days when children were content with a stocking containing an orange, the latest Dandy or Beano annual, a handful of assorted nuts (still in their shells, of course) and a few simple and inexpensive toys. Ah yes, I remember it well.

Time was when the must-have Christmas present for children and adults alike was a magical

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By Christopher Proudlove ©

IT’S A  bit like school. You study hard (in theory anyway), pass countless exams (hopefully) and over time, pick the subjects you like best. Then, if everything goes to plan, higher education beckons. Now’s the time to specialise.

Be transported by slideshow to the saleroom

To the exclusion of everything else (well, almost everything) you’re concentrating now on one subject alone. You’re mixing with like-minded individuals and despite the competition, the tuition you received in earlier years pays dividends.

Ironically, so it is with fine art auction sales. With bidding sometimes rising at the rate of £1,000 a time, to the uninitiated, they can be as scary as the first day at a new school. So how do you become initiated? Actually, it’s simple: like any learning, you start in the junior class, although in this case, they’re called general sales.

Almost every auctioneer in the country has them. They might be disguised as something

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By Christopher Proudlove ©

THERE were gasps of amazement … and self-satisfied smiles from those in the know. Small, nondescript Moorcroft pairs of vases decorated with the ubiquitous pansies sell for around £200 in local auctions, £300 if you’re lucky and dealers in the room want stock.

Click here for a Moorcroft mystery tour

So how come the two illustrated here fetched £2,400? After all, they are nondescript, yes?

Actually, not a bit of it. They might only measure a mere six centimetres in height, but these little rarities pack a punch above their weight.

The secret is in the background on which the pansies are painted. Instead of the usual deep

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By Christopher Proudlove ©

YOU’VE SEEN them at countless car boot sales, and you’ve been embarrassed when you’ve  asked the stallholder how much he wants for the naff set of NatWest piggy banks, the SylvaC bunnies or the preserve pots shaped like onions modelled with faces on the sides.

Click here for a 20th Century Ceramics slideshow

But it’s okay. Help is at hand in the shape of the latest glossy hardback to come from the stable of the Antique Collectors’ Club, entitled "Starting to Collect 20th Century Ceramics". Author Andrew Casey is an acknowledged expert on the subject and his book has been produced specially with the novice collector in mind.

From the Lord of the Rings figures from the Middle Earth Series produced by Royal Doulton in 1980 to the Homemaker designs made in the 1950s for Woolworth’s by Ridgway Potteries, Mr Casey’s book is not just an exercise in "Do people really collect those?", but

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By Christopher Proudlove ©

I ASSURE you that listening to music as I write this is purely as an aid to concentration.  The fact that the music is being beamed to my desk via the Internet and coming from stereo speakers connected to my computer is purely incidental.

Click here for a music box slideshow

But it is worth stopping for a moment to consider the technological advances we’ve seen, even during the 20-odd years I’ve been writing this weekly column.

Time was when I wanted to listen to my favourite artist, I’d select the appropriate 12-inch plastic disc, place it on an electrically driven turntable, and set a needle on it. Talk about the dark ages (though I still cannot bring myself to part with my collection of plastic discs!).

When our grandparents and great-grandparents wanted the pleasure of having music in

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By Christopher Proudlove ©

IT HAS been over 50 years since Lladró products first came on to the market and whether you love them or loathe them, there can be no escaping the fact that they have become collectors’ items in a very short space of time.

See a Lladro slideshow

The company was founded in 1953 when Juan, Jose and Vicente, three brothers of considerable artistic talent, formed the small family company in the Valencian village of Almácera, on Spain’s eastern Mediterranean coast.

The Lladró brothers were born into a farming family, but they made their mark on the ancient tradition of Spanish porcelain manufacture by developing a range of products much closer to ordinary people which previously had been reserved for only the rich. They

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By Christopher Proudlove ©

SUITORS have been giving love tokens to the apples of their eyes ever since Eve persuaded Adam to eat the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden.

For today’s collectors, the tradition has created a wealth of collecting opportunities ranging from precious gold posy rings to glass rolling pins. Even pieces of furniture, such as wedding chests, chairs and dressers are found carved with lovers’ initials and often dates of their betrothal or birth of their offspring.

Click here for a Welsh love spoon slideshow

More often than not, it was small domestic objects such as lace bobbins, knitting sheaths and stay busks that were more likely to be adopted as love tokens, while for sailors, Valentines made from shells, or carved whales’ teeth made on long, lonely voyages were the gifts of choice.

The best were made personally by the hand of the giver but vast quantities were produced commercially and examples of such things as pottery inscribed with love messages or heart-shaped pincushions with girls’ names or messages spelt out either in embroidery or pinheads are still relatively common and readily affordable.

Collectors of naive and primitive works of art are naturally drawn to the rustic love tokens carved in wood throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. Collectively, such pieces are Read more

By Christopher Proudlove ©

COLLECTORS who are drawn to art pottery need not travel to South America for a  chance to own pieces from the valuable hoard of Pilkington’s Royal Lancastrian pottery pictured here … dealer Alison Davey, who runs A.D.Antiques in Staffordshire has done it for you.

Click here for a Royal Lancastrian slideshow

It represents a hunt for that lasted more than six months and among more than 85 new pieces acquired by her from private collections are some from as far afield as Buenos Aries.

They include 18 pieces of the now scarce lustre-decorated pottery and coupled with her existing stock, this must be the largest collection of Royal Lancastrian offered for sale for a

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By Christopher Proudlove ©

YOU’RE about as much use as a chocolate teapot! It’s a put-down that’s as old as the hills, but while teapots made from chocolate are as rare as rocking horse do-do, antiques related to the confection are still relatively plentiful.

Click here for a sweet slideshow

“Chocolate antiques” including 17th and 18th century Chinese pots for pouring the stuff and cups for drinking it, together with 19th and early 20th century English silver chocolate pots are sweet collectors’ items.

Chinese chocolate cups and pots are described as rare by Oriental specialist exhibitor

Catherine Hunt. She says: “The popularity of chocolate exploded across the West when the secret of the drink escaped from the Spanish. They originally brought it back from the New

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By Christopher Proudlove ©

I have no idea whether or not  Chief Constables are readers of this column (if they’re not, they ought to be) but I have a message for each of them: do homeowners a favour and get the Bumblebee on your team of crime fighters. It’s a honey of an idea and it’s designed to take some of the sting out of being the victim of a burglary.

It’s all so simple: when police recover stolen property with no known owners, it is posted on an online database so that members of the public who have suffered loss can search and browse through the lists to try to identify their missing property.

Named after Operation Bumblebee, the huge roadshow in which hundreds of recovered
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By Christopher Proudlove ©

LIKE thousands of other schoolboys my age, I was introduced to the gloriously idiosyncratic folly that is Portmeirion by the equally bizarre ITV series The Prisoner. Not only did I want to live there, I wanted a Lotus Super Seven as driven by the star of the series, Patrick McGoohan, and a Mini Moke for bobbing around the town.

See a Portmeirion Slideshow

With the passage of time, we’re talking the 1960s here, not one but three cults have grown up: a fascination with the Shangri-La created by architect Clough Williams-Ellis; The Prisoner Appreciation Society, which still holds its annual meetings there; and for us collectors, the eponymous tableware of such distinctive style that is so popular, it is still being made and can be found in homes throughout the UK, US and Asia.

A new book*, published this week to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the opening Williams-Ellis’ holiday retreat for the upper classes, explores each of these cults and much more. But it is the chapter on Portmeirion Pottery, written by Mark Eastment,

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By Christopher Proudlove ©

At the outset, let me make it clear I am not a golfer, nor do I have any desire to become one.

That said, I could become an armchair golfer, or rather a collector of the implements associated with the sport. My interest stems from watching an auction of golfing memorabilia some years ago in which a single golf club sold for a record £49,000.

Dating from the earliest days of golf, the club had been made by a blacksmith, so it was pretty crude, to say the least. It was discovered in a garden shed in Edinburgh and the story made international headlines.

It was not unlike the “Very Early and Important Square Toe Light Iron, circa 1600″ pictured in the slideshow here. Indeed, it may be the very same club. Either way, prices have spiralled in the meantime. Read more