Rare Goss ‘cottage’ models: Massachusetts Hall, Harvard included in a box lot at Leighton Hall Auctions which sold for £3300.
The market today is much smaller with the majority of once carefully assembled collections offered at auction as single group lots.
So it was when a large collection of crested wares appeared for sale at Leighton Hall Auctions (20% buyer’s premium) in Stone, Staffordshire, on July 15.
However, those who viewed the online pictures of this box lot will have quickly homed in on one of the rarest of all the 40 Goss ‘cottage’ models: the Massachusetts Hall, Harvard.
This 7in (17cm) unglazed model with polychrome enamel decoration was first registered in 1914 and listed as a new model in the 8th edition of The Goss Record alongside models of Wordsworth’s Birthplace, Cockermouth, and Southampton Tudor House.
It was made as a nightlight and was typically not painted with a crest.
Rare Goss ‘cottage’ models: Manx Cottage, included in a box lot at Leighton Hall Auctions which sold for £3300.
Other good pieces in the lot included a Goss model of Huer’s House Cornwall and one of the earliest of the Goss cottages, Manx Cottage, registered in 1896, offered here in the large-scale ‘night light’ size.
Estimated at just £10-20, the lot sold at £3300.
