“That’s because they’re selling old stuff, collectables and that,” said the harassed organiser lady.

Watch a slideshow of glass car mascots

“But a lot of their stuff is brand new, the same kind of things we’re selling,” countered one trader as I eavesdropped on the conflict.

“Well yes, I know, but the new stuff isn’t selling,” was the organiser’s feeble response.

It didn’t go down well!

I wanted to butt in and suggest that the so-called antiques fair, also among the “attractions” in the “huge trade mall” in the centre of the field was another area where trading standards

officers could have had a field day.

Most of the stuff dated from around 1740 – that’s 20 minutes to six, probably the night before.

Instead, I thought better of it and went to check out the automobilia and autojumble for myself. I was looking for car mascots made from glass like the ones illustrated here. It was the same story.

Antiques? Amid the glitz and the glamour and the few genuine pieces for the connoisseur, the only antiques I saw were some of the cars and the folk driving them.

Yes, fake glass mascots have been known to turn up, but they are few and far between, compared to duff metal examples which are legion.

Glass mascots are among the most sought after and expensive of all car bling, the best being those made between 1915-30.

A number of companies produced them, including Marius-Ernest Sabino and Edmund Etling in France and Warren Kessler and Red-Ashay in this country.

The latter company was founded by Herman George Ascher, a Czech émigré who established his business in Manchester in the 1920s.

Coming from an area then known as Bohemia, which was renowned for the production of fancy glass products, Ascher was well placed to commission and import glass mascots, which he sold at motor car exhibitions in London and Edinburgh and from his premises in Chorlton on Medlock.

In all, Ascher built a range of 30 mascots, which he marketed under the name Red-Ashay. However, they were the preserve of only the well-heeled and the well-wheeled.

They retailed for between one to 10 guineas, the best being those which were illuminated by the car’s battery.

Even more novel were examples fitted with cylinders of coloured glass which caused the mascot to glow in shades of white light, red, orange, blue and green.

Some were controlled by hand, while others were driven by a small propeller fitted to the mascot mount.

As the car gathered speed, so the propeller turned faster, causing the coloured cylinder to spin, emitting a different colour as if did so.

Changes in taste and the nationalisation of Czech glass factories after the Second World War saw the decline and eventual death of Red-Ashay, the company closing in 1952, but the Nottingham-based company Crystal Art Glass continues to import and sell some of the mascots, produced by the original moulds used by the factory that made them for Herman Ascher. (So, beware new examples being passed off as antique).

Doyen of all glass mascot makers, however, was the master French glassmaker René Lalique (1860-1945) whose most famous mascot was commissioned by the Citroen (e with two dots over it) car company entitled Cinq Cheveaux (five horses) for the 5CV car first introduced in 1924.

Others include St Christopher, Archer, Coq Nain (cockerel), Perche (fish), Grand Libellule (dragonfly) Tete (first e acute) d’Aigle (eagle’s head), Sanglier (boar’s head), Chrysis (kneeling nude), Longchamps (horse’s head), Tete (first e circumflex) de Paon (peacock’s head) and Victoire (female head).

They were hugely popular. The eagle’s head, for example, which symbolised military might, was chosen by Hitler for his commanders’ Mercedes-Benz staff cars.

Rich British motorists bought them eagerly too, through Lalique’s London agents, the Breves Galleries in Knightsbridge.

Many were sold also as paperweights, but mascots are distinguishable by the heavy brass bases which allowed them to be mounted to car radiator or bonnet.

Lalique trained as a jewellery designer and maker but went on to spread his Art Nouveau and later Art Deco interpretations across most media including perfume bottles, porcelain, chandeliers and clocks.

Glass mascots also served to warn drivers of the temperature of the water in their car radiators which were often prone to boiling over.

These so-called moto-meters or calormeters comprised an illuminated glass tube sandwiched between discs of clear glass in a metal mount attached to the radiator cap.

When the temperature rose, the water level climbed inside the tube, giving the driver an ever-visible indication of engine temperature, even at night.

The glass and dials of these gauges were often engraved with decoration and they quickly sprouted wings and other adornment, although they were intended to be treated more seriously than the adornment of a car bonnet.

As a result, they are less expensive than most others and largely immune from the fakers.

Slideshow pictures show a handsome group of glass mascots sold by Warrington, Cheshire based vintage and veteran motor car auctioneers H&H Sales. The most valuable proved to be a Lalique St Christopher in perfect condition, which sold for £731. An amber version of Lalique’s Coc Nain sold for £315 despite a significant chip to the base, followed by a Red-Ashay style of a woman’s head, modelled after Lalique’s Victoire, which fetched £405. A rare Red-Ashay Pharaoh mascot sold for £191.

Just how hard was driven home to me this week when fate found me standing beneath a magnificent French chandelier. You can imagine its size when I tell you that the orb suspended from its base, which I could have reached up and touched, was about the same size as a crystal ball and would not have looked out of place in Gypsy Rose Lee’s boudoir!

Above it I counted 24 lights, now converted to electricity, each one held by an elaborate gilt bronze candleholder and the whole thing dripped with what I thought were jewel-like chunks of cut-glass.

“It’s all rock crystal,” said my host, much to my amazement (modesty prevents me from saying who it was and where we were, but suffice it to say he owns one of the North of England’s most charming stately homes).

“I bought in an auction about 10 years ago and everyone including the auctioneer thought it was glass,” he said. “It was filthy dirty and no one paid it much mind, but I did some research before the sale and after I bought, it the owner confirmed it had one hung in a French palace.”

The discovery that the cut crystals were natural and not manmade probably increased its value by a factor of 10. “But the owner didn’t mind, because she knew it was going to a good home,” he added with a wry smile.

The story rather sums up the significance of what is basically a colourless variety of quartz which can be found all over the world. For the scientists among us, it is known today as hyaline quartz and is composed entirely of silica in its purest state which has been crystallised.

Unaffected by intense heat or acid, the crystals are totally clear and perfectly transparent, although when they were formed millions of years ago, they sometimes attracted other minerals, liquids or gases, which became included in their mass as tiny imperfections.

The result of these accidents of nature is that each crystal has its own “personality” and no two are alike. Ancient mystics revered the mineral because of the mists, bubbles and faults it contained, and this, together with the fact that the most beautiful examples came from mountainous regions where it was very cold, led to the belief that they must have been formed by water that had frozen at such extreme temperatures, it was impossible to melt it again — hence its name, from the Greek word krystallos, meaning “ice”.

All sorts of superstitions sprung up around rock crystal: it was thought to contain the memory of the world, the secrets of the mythical Atlantis, the power to heal and, more than any other stone, power is connected to the occult (hence the connection with fortune telling).

Rock crystal jewellery and amulets have been found in Egyptian tombs. Indians in the Americas believed to the mineral could give second sight. When held against the face it could cure toothache, and when served from a rock crystal goblet, poisoned wine was supposedly rendered harmless.

The result of this reverence for rock crystal has meant that objects fashioned from it have been craved and created throughout history. The Romans, the ancient Chinese, the Incas, in fact most civilisations from as early as 2000 BC all crafted treasures that today are priceless museum pieces.

From the 14th to the 17th centuries, the crowned heads of Europe poured their personal fortunes into collecting and commissioning works of art from the mineral. It was then considered essential that every palace should contain a cabinet of curiosities in which the treasures would feature. Often, these cabinets became small rooms stuffed with sometimes hundreds of pieces of rock crystal and other precious objects, made by court-sponsored workshops employing master carvers and other craftsmen who supplied them.

Interestingly, however, the increase in scientific knowledge from the late 18th century onwards caused rock crystal to fall from favour. One demystified and debunked, the magical powers of the mineral fell away and the need to own the finest examples of it fell from fashion.

In contrast, the end of the 19th century saw a complete reversal, much to the delight of today’s collectors. It was probably caused by Europe’s leading jewelers, who rediscovered the qualities and artistic merits of the mineral.

At the World’s Fair in Paris in 1889, a group of them collaborated to produce a magnificent rock crystal and gold Chimera vase which was the toast of the event. In 1870, the 24-year-old Carl Fabergé began to exploit the large quantities of rock crystal available in Russia to make a fabulous range of silver-mounted objects to the delight of his Moscow customers.

Fabergé is credited with making arguably the finest 20th century piece of rock crystal ever created when he made the Winter Egg, inspired by the Russian winter, which Czar Nicholas II gave to his mother Maria Feodorovna. The rock crystal egg was decorated with a frosted motif of 1,300 rose-uncut diamonds and stood on base shaped like a block of ice encrusted with diamond icicles. Inside the egg was a little platinum basket, also decorated with diamonds, and containing anemones made of white quartz with leaves of nephrite.

At the other end of the price scale, Fabergé’s workshop produced hundreds of charming rock crystal objets d’art such as small vases apparently full of water in which stand golden stemmed cornflowers, while photograph frames, cigarette boxes and pendants can also still be found (and afforded) today.

Meanwhile, in New York, Lewis Comfort Tiffany had introduced jewellery with rock crystal set alongside diamonds, while Van Clee and Arpels and Cartier were producing so-called mystery clocks, the hands of which appeared to float in the dial and moved apparently independently of the clock movement, which was set in the onyx or jade base.

In the 1930s, jewellers worldwide followed the Art Deco trend and rock crystal was given its head yet again. Stunningly stylish, and today scarily expensive, angular bow brooches, bracelets and clips with the mineral set in platinum alongside sapphires diamonds and black onyx were de rigueur.

They often appear in the catalogues of the top auction houses – at prices to match!

antiques@chris-proudlove.co.uk

Pictures show Top: The future is rosy: this 1930s bronze figure is by Duvernet and is titled “Oblivion”. It’s worth £800-1,200
Above: This spray of hardstone raspberries and leaves set in a rock crystal vase is catalogued as “in the Fabergé taste”. As a result it’s worth £300-400

He came to mind to the other day as I walked around an Art Deco collectors’ fair. One stall was doing a healthy trade and wrapping customers’ purchases in the most stylish carrier bags I’ve seen in a while. The bags aren’t collectors’ items yet (they surely will be one day), but the 1930s plastic knickknacks being sold on the stall have certainly become so.

There was everything you could think of from eggcups and salt and pepper sets to the most amazing handbags, cigarette cases, powder compacts and ornaments, all bearing that unmistakable angular design so definitive of the Deco era.

Among the customers were a man and woman who clearly had taken collecting to the extreme: each was dressed as if they had just set stepped out of a Cecil B. Demille movie set. It came as no surprise when they walked away from the stall clutching one of those amazing carrier bags.

Antiques get younger every day, so it is wrong to be surprised that plastic objects could feature in such a prestigious fair. After all, they are no less stylish than the bronze and ivory figures by Ferdinand Preiss or the engraved glass of Keith Murray, just a whole lot cheaper, although you might be surprised at the prices being asked by some of the stuff I saw the Deco fair!

When it was invented, plastic revolutionised our lives. It happened almost by chance. Birmingham inventor Alexander Parkes is generally credited as the person responsible when in 1862, he went to his medicine cabinet to find some collodion to staunch the bleeding of a cut finger. He discovered that the liquid had turned into a gummy, rubber-like substance which he realised had potential if it could be moulded into shape.

After much trial and error, the first synthetic plastic, called Parkesine, was unveiled at the Universal Exhibition of 1862. It was launched to the buying public in 1865 in the form of decorative wall plaques, hair slides, combs and knife handles. However, they were not a success. They either warped with wear, or became brittle and prone to cracking and Parkes’ company was forced into liquidation.

Such early products as these, which retailed between 1862 and 1868, are incredibly rare. Meanwhile, Parkes’ associate, Daniel Spill, began to make similar plastics, intended to look like wood and ivory. They were marketed under the trade names Xylonite and Ivoride, but were not successful either.

In the U.S. at around the same time, brothers Isaiah and John Wesley Hyatt invented a similar material which they called celluloid. In 1877, the Hyatt Company and Xylonite merged to become the British Xylonite Company, which still exists today as BXL Plastics Ltd.

Celluloid was far less brittle and soon it was being used to make knife handles, napkin rings, bowls, dressing table sets and countless other decorative knickknacks which became hugely popular at the turn of the century. The objects could be bought in “ivory”, “tortoiseshell” or “pearl” finishes, some of which were so lifelike that they looked like the real thing. It’s even possible to be fooled today.

Interestingly, celluloid proved to be less than successful. “Moving picture houses” became popular in the early 1900s, but when people saw how quickly the celluloid film burst into flames when something went wrong with the cinema’s projection equipment, they stopped buying objects made from it for their homes!

Another early plastic, called Casein, was developed by the Bavarian chemist Adolf Spitteler, apparently after his cat knocked over a bottle of formaldehyde solution into its saucer of milk. The result, after much research, was a lustrous milky white plastic which was used to simulate amber, ivory, agate and malachite.

It was marketed from 1914 under the trade name of Erinoid, but this was not much good either. It was used for tableware and kitchen items such as cutlery handles and napkin rings, but it retained moisture and proved impractical.

The big breakthrough in usable moulded plastic came with the invention of Bakelite, or phenol formaldehyde resin, patented by Leo Baekeland in 1909, just one day ahead of his London rival, Sir James Swinburne.

The distinctive dark mottled brown, red or green Bakelite was about as good as it got at the time for a totally man-made synthetic plastic. It was heat resistant and therefore ideal for electrical products such as hair dryers, television sets and radios, smoking accessories, and most kitchen equipment, although was not good for serving hot liquids, because the plastic gave off an unpleasant smell and flavoured the drinks.

Another major drawback of Bakelite was that it could only be made in darker colours, but in the Twenties ureathiourea formaldehyde made its appearance, under such trade names as “Bandalasta” and “Linga-Longa”, which were both lighter in colour and more aesthetically pleasing.

In 1938, under the name of “Exton”, nylon, the first totally man-made fibre appeared, while wartime research led to many acrylic products such as Perspex being developed, followed by PVC, laminated boards like Formica and Melamine, versatile polythene and, eventually, expanded polyurethane, which could be both flexible and rigid.

Each exerted an influence on our sense of colour and design, particularly in the form of streamlining, since the moulding process favoured curves. The products were soon found in every room in the modern home.

With such a varied history and so many different types of plastics to choose from, it was inevitable that collectors would turn their attention to this area of collectables. From the early Seventies onwards, enthusiasts began to build up interesting collections and for several years a Bakelite Museum in Wilton, Somerset, provided a focus and issued a newsletter.

Classic Plastics, by Sylvia Katz, (Thames & Hudson, 1984) gave fresh impetus to collecting, and specialist dealers began to comb the country for rare and unusual items for sale at home and overseas.

As you might imagine, there’s no shortage of collectible plastics, so it’s worth insisting on mint condition with no chips or cracks and, unless it is an aesthetically pleasing or particularly rare object, no fading.

Take particular note of hinges, often a stress-point. Named items, with trademarks in some cases, make dating easier, giving clues to the composition of the material used. If possible, where made for a purpose, pieces should be in working order, or restorable.

A gentle wipe over with a damp cloth and a light polish is usual enough to restore plastic to its original condition, but use nothing abrasive and avoid soaking, especially in very hot water.

Flea markets, boot fairs, church bazaars and family attics all yield treasures, once you are alive to them. Prices vary widely. Specialist dealers such as those at the Deco fair are bound to charge more than a car-booter clearing out his attic, and London dealers with West End overheads obviously charge most of all.

Some items like radios, dolls, handbags and fans, are collected not only because of the material from which they are made but because of their purpose as well, so as well against other Bakelite buffs, you are competing against wireless enthusiasts, doll devotees, costume collectors and fan fanatics.

Generally speaking, classic radios cost between £80 and £150; handbags from £5 to £65; clocks, pairs of candlesticks, photo frames, cigarette boxes and fans from £15 to £30, although there’s plenty at under £10.

But prices are rising, so invest primarily in items which embody the style of an era, whether it is the elegance of true Art Deco or the fun of Fifties kitsch.

There can be few collecting fields which offer such scope for individual enterprise for such a reasonable outlay. So don’t dismiss plastics as second-rate substitutes. They deserve recognition as a serious field for the collector.

Picture shows: Fantastic plastic: some of the most amazing and colourful uses of plastic were in the Wurlitzer jukeboxes of the 1930s and 40s. This Model 750 has cream, scarlet and green Perspex panels which glow from the internal illumination. It plays 78 rpm records only and is worth £15,000-20,000

antiques@chris-proudlove.co.uk

We tend not to think about it but given time, antiques collectors will look back on the first few decades of the 21st Century and marvel at how life was then, probably in much the same way that we do today about the 1920s Art Deco period. What they will be collecting is anyone’s guess, and if I knew, I’d be stockpiling now.

If I was clever, I’d be trying to come up with a catchy term that best sums up the mood of the era. “Nouveau Elizabethan”, perhaps, or “Deco Revival” or, God forbid, “eBayian”, so-called after all the people who buy and sell “eBayiana” on the Internet.

What will be interesting, from an historical point of view, is whether or not today’s collecting trends stand the test of time. Will people still be going daft about Doulton, bonkers about Beswick and crazy about Clarice Cliff?

The cynics say the price spiral cannot continue. Hard-bitten collectors have a foot in two camps: on the one hand, as supply of the best stuff continues to dwindle, they hope beyond hope that they can continue to afford to add to their respective collections. On the other hand, if prices decline, so their investments become ever less sound.

It’s a brave man who makes a prediction, and I ain’t. But a conversation with a local auctioneer this week added another dimension to the conundrum: the popularity of Deco antiques looks set to continue for at least as long as the fashion to make our homes unfussy, uncluttered and unique.

Adrian Byrne, of Chester fine art and antiques auctioneers Byrne’s, was in the middle of cataloguing a single-owner collection of Clarice Cliff ceramics. They had been sent for sale by an owner living on the North Wales coast.

Almost 60 lots of the pottery is about to come back on to the market for the first time in years after being in the private collection of someone who spared no effort to seek out and own the best.

He said: �This is some of the best Clarice Cliff I�ve been asked to sell for as long I can remember. The collection was assembled by a local man who really did appreciate just how important a figure Clarice was in the field of 1920s ceramic design. After years of collecting, however, he has run out of space in his home to display the museum-quality pieces to their full potential, so he has decided the time is right to give other collectors the opportunity to enjoy them as much as he has.”

So who was Clarice Cliff?
She was born on January 20, 1899, in Tunstall, one the five towns of Arnold Bennett’s Potteries. Father was an iron moulder, and she was one of seven children who, like most youngsters in the Potteries in those days, started work as an apprentice at the age of 13 in the local pot bank, Lingard, Webster and Co.
She had shown an aptitude for drawing while at elementary school, so it was a natural progression to learn freehand painting on pottery without the aid of printed or drawn outlines to follow.
After the customary three-year apprenticeship as an enameller, she left to learn lithography with Hollinshead and Kirkham and at the same time enrolled on a study course at Tunstall School of Art. On her 17th birthday she again changed her job, joining A.J. Wilkinson and Co. as a lithographer.
Her career with Wilkinson’s Royal Staffordshire Pottery at Burslem was to last a lifetime and its managing director, Colley Shorter, was later to become her husband.
Clarice�s artistic ability was first noticed by Shorter’s brother-in-law, Jack Walker, who was decorating manager at the Wilkinson pot bank. By chance he saw one of her drawings of a butterfly on a piece of lustreware and from then on, she was allowed to experiment.
In 1927, she was accepted by the Royal College of of Art in London to study sculpture, but she returned to Burslem after only a few months away and set up a studio in the Newport Pottery showrooms which had been acquired by Wilkinson.
Within a few months she had added original and extravagant decoration to the firm’s traditional wares which were so popular that new lines had to be hidden away for fear industrial spies would steal them and sell them to rival companies.
With a handful of girls working for her, she hand-painted 60 dozen pieces of existing stock and sent them out for market testing in 1928. Clarice called this early ware “Bizarre” and after a cautious reception from the trade, the market testing was an enormous success, selling out instantly. A year later, in 1929, the entire Newport factory was given over to producing Bizarre pottery.
Output between 1929 and 1935 was prodigious and the ware was being shown at most of the big exhibitions. For the big occasions, Clarice would take a group of her Bizarre Girls, as she called them, to bedeck the display and promote sales.
They would be dressed in smocks, large neck bows and artists’ berets, accompanied by a “pantomime” horse called Bizooka, from which hung examples of the ware.
In 1940, Colley Shorter’s first wife died after a long illness and he and Clarice married that same year at Staffordshire Register Office.
By 1941, however, the Bizarre shop was forced to close when output from the Newport factory was given over war work for the Ministry of Supply. After the war, a combination of diminished appeal, dearer raw materials and shortage of trained labour led to the demise of the ware.

He would say that wouldn’t he. But it was another remark that made me stop and think. Adrian added: �Clarice Cliff pottery is an investment which is always going to give a good return. Its perennial appeal is based on its timelessness in terms of design and aesthetics. For a home with modern interiors or based on an Art Deco theme, it�s the perfect accompaniment.”

And there you have it. Could this be the answer? And could this be the reason why Clarice Cliff will only ever get more expensive? Who knows, in 2105 all the best stuff might well be in museums.

The answer then might well be to buy now while stocks last. They’re not everyone’s cup of tea, of course, but Clarice’s crocks were always expensive and were aimed at the Harrods market, not Woolworth�s.

But they were good fun. What makes them so appropriate today is their angular designs and bright, gay, hand-painted decoration. There’s something very cool and chic about laminate floors, plate glass and chrome furniture and leather chairs. Light, neutral colours are demanded by interior designers, but it’s easy to fall into the trap of characterless uniformity.

Introduce half a dozen examples of Clarice Cliff into an interior and no one could accuse you of being characterless.

Go back 30 years and the world had forgotten Clarice Cliff. Her weird, brightly coloured pottery was consigned to the top shelves of junk shops and if anyone was mad enough to want to buy it, it was theirs for a few shillings. Today, all that has changed. In these minimalist times when d�cor is pruned back to bare essentials and sleek, clean lines are de rigueur, Clarice�s so-called Bizarre pottery is totally at home.

Clarice�s gaudy Bizarre pottery was once derided by the purists. Then in 1972 the directors of Brighton Museum and Art Gallery organised the first Clarice Cliff exhibition.

Clarice provided notes for the accompanying catalogue and also donated some pieces from her own collection, but she never attended and shied away from the publicity. The exhibition wowed visitors who were intrigued to learn this doyenne of Staffordshire’s Pottery Ladies was still alive. Her death the same year served only to heighten their interest

In the following year, the London gallery, L’Odeon, staged a major exhibition of Clarice Cliff which was attended by many of the Bizarre Girls. They were an intensely proud and loyal band of paintresses who were considered among the elite of their day in the Potteries.

Blockbusting London sales of her ceramics followed, the first at Christie�s in June 1983, which put Clarice�s name back on the lips of collectors worldwide, particularly among the younger generation looking to invest in antiques.

Today she is lauded as one of the most influential ceramic artists of the 20th Century.

Pictures show, top: Clarice�s crocks, left to right: a Wilkinson Meiping vase, in the Melon pattern, circa 1930-32, (Estimate �700-1,000); a Newport Meiping vase, decorated in the Whisper pattern (�1,500-2000); a Newport conical sugar sifter, in the Blue Autumn pattern, circa 1931, (�800-1,200); a Newport vase in the Sunray pattern, circa 1929-30 (�600-900)

Below, left to right:
Plate glass, chrome and black ash furniture makes the perfect backdrop for Clarice�s crocks. Left to right, top: a Newport Lotus jug, decorated with the Sliced Fruit pattern, circa 1930, (estimate �700-1,000); a Newport Meiping vase, decorated in the Whisper pattern (estimate �1,500-2,000). Middle a Newport biscuit barrel decorated in the football pattern, circa 1929-30, (�1,000-1,500); a Newport Coronet jug, in the Orange Picasso Flower pattern, circa 1930, (�500-800). Bottom: a Wilkinson vase in the Melons pattern, circa 1930-32 (�800-1,000).

Centuries collide: left, Clarice�s Newport Meiping vase, decorated in the Whisper pattern (estimate �1,500-2,000); right, a Wilkinson vase in the Melons pattern, circa 1930-32, (�800-1,000),

Prices are going up for investors with ultra modern homes. From bottom: a Newport Lotus jug, decorated with the Sliced Fruit pattern, circa 1930, (Estimate �700-1,000); a Newport Meiping vase, decorated in the Whisper pattern (�15,00-2,000); a Wilkinson vase in the Melons pattern, circa 1930-32, (�800-1,000). Furniture from Chattels The Furnishers, 42 City Road, Chester