On January 24 the auctioneers offered the figure of a Mounted Cowboy that had been broken away from its base and had both the head and the tail reglued. It still made £530 – a price that would have bought a perfect one just a year or two ago.
On February 7 a Canadian Mountie – chip to the ear and head reglued – sold for £370, while a rare version of the Shire Horse in a palamino colourway took £490 despite a broken leg. Interestingly the latter (perhaps the hardest-to-find of close to a dozen variants of this model) is currently ‘booked’ at £650 when perfect. Auctioneer Clive Hillier will be hoping for more than that when he offers a good example on March 7-8.
Among the highlights of the February 21 ‘general’ sale at Britannia House was a collection of eight T.G. Green Cornish Ware blue and white lidded storage vessels sold for £440. They were the same form as the lidded dish for dripping pictured on page 20 of ATG No. 1678, February 26, sold for £260 at Byrne’s of Chester and were inscribed for margarine, lard, butter and dripping. However, condition was mixed and some pieces had chips and discolouration.
Six Wade figures of dwarfs from the first (late ’30s) issue of the Snow White series realised £310 despite the flaking paint associated with these early models, while a Wedgwood Skeaping model of a polar bear in matt straw took £250.
Even with a broken leg this horse is still a runner
Remarkable things continue to happen in the Beswick market. Consider the fortunes of a handful of scarce, but damaged, models seen recently at the Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent rooms of Louis Taylor (12.5% buyer’s premium).
