Royal Doulton

Given the Potteries location, it is hardly surprising that Royal Doulton and Beswick have long provided Louis Taylor (12.5% buyer's premium) with their bread-and-butter business as well as many top lots. The first day of their quarterly fine sales is always devoted to these staples, predominantly sourced from private vendors living within a 50-mile radius of the Hanley rooms.

THE Lambert Collection of British art pottery and furniture comes under the hammer at Bonhams Bond Street (19.5/10% buyer’s premium) on September 22.

SAIREY Gamp and Tony Weller are two of the most commonly encountered Royal Doulton character jugs (and accordingly among the cheapest) but only very rarely are the two Dickens’ characters seen as bookends.

KEYS (10% buyer's premium) of Aylsham maintain the format of mammoth offerings – 1556 lots offered over two days (April 20-21) in this case – and, although only 60 per cent of them got away, there was plenty of material for budget-conscious collectors of such favourites as Royal Doulton character jugs and figures as well as Beswick Beatrix Potter and animal models.

THE March 5 sale at Dee Atkinson & Harrison's (10% buyer's premium) West Yorkshire saleroom was the first antiques offering of the year and, after an 83 per cent selling rate on nearly 700 lots, the auctioneers took encouragement from the way the market seemed to be picking up, with furniture, at last, edging out of the doldrums.

A 100-LOT collection of Meissen, Derby and Cont-inental porcelain figures, together with some furniture and works of art from a local Thanet private vendor, formed the backbone of Canterbury Auction Galleries (15% buyer's premium) February 24 outing which attracted a large number of private buyers, many of whom secured the top ceramic lots.

THE figures after Louis Taylor's (12.5% buyer's premium) March 8 & 9 sale at the Hanley salerooms added to auctioneer Clive Hillier’s belief that the whole antiques scene is considerably brighter now than it was last year. “The sale went better than I expected and comes on top of our generally weekly sales regularly totalling £20,000 to £25,000 against the £12,000-15,000 they used to take,” he said.

To mark the last firing of a traditional bottle oven in 1978, the Royal Doulton factory produced a special backstamp to apply to the base of a few otherwise ordinary character jugs.

Auctioneer Geoffrey Barfoot has noted increased activity at the general sales in the Campsea Ashe rooms of Abbotts (10% buyer’s premium) and the mood has spread to fine art – “provided the lots are fresh to market and good or rare”.

Royal Doulton and Moorcroft collectors are always in abundance at these sales in the heart of the Potteries, and if their specialisms within their subjects sometimes make for hard going at the rostrum, the increasing demand for Royal Albert pieces was well catered for.

The curious inhabitants of Middle Earth have existed quite happily (and vividly) in the minds of readers since J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic The Lord of the Rings first appeared in the 1950s.

The Doulton Lambeth Wares by Desmond Eyles, revised by Louise Irvine, published by Richard Dennis Publications, The Old Chapel, Shepton Beauchamp, Somerset, TA19 0LE. ISBN 090368579 £60 hb.

TRADING Standards officers have issued a warning to the trade to be on the alert for fake Royal Doulton. Several pieces have come to light over the past few months, including Lambeth Ware.

The inaugural specialist sale of some 350 character jugs at the Stoke on Trent ceramics auctioneers Potteries Specialist Auction (12.5% buyer’s premium) on November 17 was, said the auctioneers, a great success with specialist UK dealers and collectors flocking to the Cobridge rooms.

The Doulton Lambeth Wares by Desmond Eyles is the classic reference book on the products of the Royal Doulton’s famous factory in London – started in 1815 for the lowly task of saltglazing sewer pipes – but the original edition is long out of print.

UK: ONE of only three in existence, this Sir Stanley Matthews Royal Doulton Character jug shocked all in attendance at Louis Taylor in Stoke-in-Trent on June 11.

UK: THE penultimate Doulton outing held by Phillips (15/10% buyer’s premium) on March 27 was the 263-lot offering of prototype figures from the Doulton archives, an event which proved highly successful for both auctioneer and vendor being a near sellout and almost doubling predictions at £425,570.

UK: THE market for commemorative ceramics proved to be strong at the Manchester rooms of Capes Dunn when two 1911 Royal Doulton beakers marking the Coronation of King George V and Queen Mary were offered.

UK: The market for 20th century collectable ceramics can be a fickle beast – as quick to react to fashion as a high street shirt – so one should not necessarily be surprised to learn that, for once, Christie’s South Kensington (17.5 per cent buyer’s premium) found the temperature variable when they dipped their toes into these waters on August 25, 2000.

UK: COLLECTABLE 20th century ceramics continue to be the target of some elaborate fakes: among the more recent additions to the 'danger' list are the series of 'Royal Doulton' Union Jack bulldogs and a 'prototype' character jug.