The Williamstown Fair is a friendly intimate event with 36 dealers, held in a heritage hall and spread across a number of rooms that you just seem to stumble upon as you wander around. Whilst there were stalls specialising in furniture, most of the traders at this fair sell mainly smalls (antique speak for smaller easily portable items such as porcelain, jewelery, silver, vintage clothing, woodworking tools, glassware etc.).

Allan and I rocked up on Sunday afternoon after a lovely lunch at Nosh’s Cafe in Newport (courtesy of a voucher I won at a Red Tent Woman network Dinner last month) prepared to enjoy a leisurely browse. And enjoy it we did. The hall was warm and toasty, a lovely contrast to the vigorous see breeze outside, and the dealers were charming and friendly.

Naturally it is compulsory for me to buy something at an event such as this, or what’s the point of having all my collections? But as it turned out what I bought had nothing to do with feeding my collecting habit. I picked up a nice warm pashmina (which I’ve used as an overlay on the background for this layout) and a cute little silver case for business cards. Now I can out-pretentious the best of them. Allan bought a framed 1970s advertising poster so we both came away feeling pretty pleased with the afternoon.

And then afterwards a stroll along the Williamstown foreshore which has the most scenic views of the city that you’ll find anywhere in Melbourne.

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Confessions of a Collectaholic
Scrapbooking Tips & Techniques – Personalising your backgrounds
The Red Tent Woman
Ballarat Antiques Fair
St. Patrick’s at the Macedonia

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Antiques @ Willi

Hidden Treasures Episode 10 (Windows Media Player)

Hidden Treasures Episode 10 (MP4)

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19th Century Scrapbooks

In 1858 Belleek was a small village owned by the Bloomfield family of Castle Caldwell in County Fermanagh, Ireland. John Caldwell Bloomfield had recently inherited the estate from his father and he was anxious about providing work for his tennants to protect them against disasters such as the Great Potato Famine that had devastated Ireland a few years previously; causing a million people to starve to death and forcing another million to flee the country seeking work in America, Canada and Australia.

Bloomfield noticed the unusual lustre of the limestone finish that his tennants applied to the walls of their cottages and, having an interest in ceramics and minerology, he decided to try to establish a pottery industry utilising the local clay and mineral feldspar which were present on his property. The two key things he was lacking were capital and know-how.

So he pitched his idea to Dublin businessman David McBirney and London architect Robert Williams Armstrong. McBirney financed the project and Armstrong used his interest in ceramics and his architectural skills to design and build the pottery, also becoming the pottery’s first manager.

So Belleek Pottery was born; providing security for local tennants who no longer had to rely soley on agriculture to sustain their community. The original output was earthenware, utilitarian pieces. But McBirney and Armstrong were keen to get into porcelain and began experimenting in this field, finally achieving some success in 1863. They brought skilled artisans such as Willam Bromley and William Gallimore over from Stoke-on-Trent to head up the Parian and modelling departments and to teach the local people the skills needed to make finer products.

Belleek’s original porcelain manufacture was fine Parian baskets with delicate woven bases and flowing floral decorations, and by the beginning of the 20th century this side of the pottery had pretty much taken over from the original utilitarian works. This Parian ware is a fine white porcelain having the appearance of marble. It is delicate and translucent with the light readily shining through the sides of the pieces. The glaze used by Belleek is one of the most beautiful you will ever come across. In 1857 Belleek secured the patent for a nacreous glaze that is extremely smooth surfaced, is unaffected by hairline cracking and is dust resistant (and yes, it really is). It is a beautiful creamy glaze and older Belleek pieces are typicaly a buttery yellow colour inside.

Belleek have made it easy to date their porcelain by changing the backstamp with which they mark their wares about 9 times since 1863. Each change has been documented so it’s easy to tell which period a piece comes from by the differences in the back stamp.

The cup, saucer and plate trio on the left are my favourite and oldest pieces. They carry the second black mark which dates them between 1891 and 1926. I just love the beautiful lustre of these pieces and their translucent quality. The green shamrock trio bears the fourth mark (1st green mark) and is from 1946-1955. and the little jug in the front carries the sixth mark and is from 1965-1980. Although the later pieces are beautiful delicate items by most other pottery’s standards, you can tell the difference in the fineness and translucency of the porcelain in the older pieces compared to the later ones.

Other related posts:
H&K Tunstall – The Delicious Dozen
On the Scent – Vintage Perfume Bottles
Confessions of a Collectaholic

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The Beauty of Belleek Porcelain

Situated just over an hour’s drive out of Melbourne, the old gold mining town of Ballarat is now a lovely regional city just reeking with history (in Aussie speak that means anything between 200 and 50 years old). And the Ballarat Antiques Fair is one of my favourite fairs as it’s quite a large event and pulls dealers from all over the country. So you get to see a really good selection of stuff. And, of course, that means you can be pretty much guaranteed of finding something you want to buy. In my case there were many somethings. But since I’d just bought a new camera the day before I felt I should restrain myself from going completely wild with the credit card.

One of the things I love about these fairs is the interesting curiosities on display. The first thing to catch my eye when I walked in was a huge Teddy Bear sitting in an old pedal car. I’m a little bit partial to teddies (”what aren’t you partial to?” I can almost hear Seona sigh) And I was very drawn to him, but I resisted temptation and moved on. Then I came across this giant ceramic cockerel. He was just gorgeous (for looking at, not for buying) so I had to take a photo.

The basketball stadium where the event was held was packed with every imaginable vintage and antique collectable and knick-knack. As well as beautiful pieces of furniture, both Australian and European.

And it was a very successful shopping day for me. I picked up a couple of hatpins for my collection: one from the 1930s and one from the 1940s. I also netted a lovely green glass Victorian scent bottle with brass fittings. It hangs by a chain from a finger ring and was worn by ladies when they went to a dance to annoint themselves with perfume when things started to get a little warm. And my final purchase was a set of blue English wheel-cut port glasses from around 1910. I am testing them out as I write this post and I’m happy to tell you they work very well.

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Allan’s Organ
St Patrick’s at the Macedonia
Confessions of a Collectaholic

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Ballarat Antiques Fair 2007

Although man has been fashioning vessels in his own image since he first discovered how to make waterproof containers out of clay, the Toby Jug is a particularly British phenomenon.

Many stories abound over who was the original ‘Toby’ on whom the jugs are based. And although a couple of heavy Stingo drinking Yorkshiremen are attributed with being the original Toby Philpot (fill pot), there’s no real proof that a single individual is the true inspiration. But, hey let’s not mess with legend!

Toby Jugs were originally large pitchers for serving ale in English hosteleries and inns during the 18th century. Over time their practical use diminished (they posed hygene issues with all the little nooks and crannies which were difficult to clean) and they were made for purely decorative purposes. The ‘original’ Toby design is of a portly gentleman sitting on a chair with a brimming mug of ale in one hand and a long stemed pipe in the other. Many variations of this design have been made by many different potters over the years but it remains the standard design and is known to collectors as the ‘Ordinary’.

Other styles of Tobies depict our portly gentleman seated on the ground with one knee drawn up or in a standing position, usually taking a pinch of snuff, playing the fiddle, and many other different poses.

My collecting interest lies with Toby Jugs of the 19th to mid 20th Century. I have about 25 so far but I do NOT collect character or face jugs such as the Doulton series ware which just model the head and shoulders of their subject. Don’t get me wrong I have nothing against these jugs, but I have kept my scope on Toby Jugs and am avoiding the ‘made for collectors’ items if possible.

The three Tobies I have selected from my collection for this photo are my three oldest ones. The Squatting Toby with the blue lustre coat on the left is from Allerton’s Pottery in Staffordshire and is probably from the first half of the 20th century. In the centre is a Snuff Taker made by Sampson Smith dating back to the late 19th C. and the red coated one on the right is my favourite: a double handled, double sided squat Toby from the 19th C.

As a sub-set of my Toby collection I have a collection of Toby Jugs made by Shorter & Son from the mid 20th Century. The style of these jugs is very different to that of other Tobies; kind of quirky. And that’s probably why they appeal to me. The hand painting is often naive but I prefer that to the airbrushed perfection of the Doulton, Artone and Kevin Francis type of models.

My one exception to my ‘no character/face jugs’ rule is a Shorter & Son King Neptune character jug which complements the King Neptune Toby (both 1950s-1970). King Neptune is a great model of a merman with a lobster across his front and a sea horse as the handle. The other example I have selected here is Covent Garden Bill (1940-1950), sitting on a fruit basket with another on his head and a banana for a handle. He is a reasonably uncommon model so I was particularly pleased when I managed to add him to my collection. He also has a character jug version which I will definitely make another exception for and add to my collection if I come across. And the last example I’ve chosen is the Chelsea Pensioner on the left (1930s-1964) which, at 4.5″ is the smallest of three sizes in which this model was made.

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A stroll down Lilliput Lane
On the Scent – Vintage Perfume Bottles
Confessions of a Collectaholic

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Toby Jugs – Will the real Toby Philpot please stand up?

We covered a brief history of the TG Green Pottery in the previous post so I won’t go over that again. But the Cornishware story is interesting in its own right.

Supposedly named by a TG Green Regional Sales Representative who was inspired by ‘the blue of the Cornish skies and the white crests of the waves’, Cornishware is the most famous of all the TG Green lines. It is the definitive blue and white kitchen ware pottery of the 20th century (Willow pattern doesn’t really count as it is primarily used on dinner wares rather than than kitchen ware). When the popularity of Cornish Kitchen Wares took off it spawned dozens of ‘me too’ lines from competing manufacturers: Kleenware, Fowlerware, Stanley Ware, Bretby Ware, to name a few. But none of them really captured the market like Cornishware.

Blue banded white wares had been around since the mid-Victorian years and there’s no record of who at TG Green came up with the idea of turning this type of pottery into a modern range of kitchen wares. It is believed that the idea was driven by the need to give the TG Green lathe turners employment in the mid 1920s during the post WWI recession. A Pottery with a background of social conscience. Gotta love that!

The Cornishware pieces are fired, coated with slip which is allowed to dry and then coated with the blue slip. When this is dry the pieces are mounted on a lathe and bands of blue slip are turned off to reveal the white body beneath. Then of course they are fired again. This also gives the pieces their texture as they have a very definitive edge to them; not achievable by just painting the stripes onto the body. This hand lathe process is still carried out today in the modern Cornishware pieces.

Over the years Cornishware has been made in several colourways: yellow (Sunlit Yellow), buff (Cornish Gold), red, black, green and teal. My collection focuses on the original blue range with pieces mainly from the 1930s and 40s; although I have a teapot from the 1960s when the range was redesigned by Judith Onions in an effort to modernise it and revitalise its market appeal.

I’m especially fond of the flour and sugar shakers which still have their original rubber stoppers in the bottom. And the sauce boat (front left) which is hard to come by. I still buy the occasional piece of Cornish ware (the pepper and salt shakers were a fairly recent addition to the collection) but, to be honest, I’ve currently shifted my collecting focus more to the Streamline collection.

Other related posts:

TG Green Streamline
Toby Jugs – Will the real Toby Philpot please stand up
Confessions of a Collectaholic

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TG Green – Cornishware

This time it’s miniature cottages. There are a number of firms making these nowadays, but the ones I collect are from Lilliput Lane. Apart from having a very cute name, they’re one of the longest running firms in this market. Lilliput Lane was founded in 1982 by David Tate who, with his wife Sandra, moved up to the beautiful Lake District of England, bought the picturesque little Rose Cottage (model on the right) and began designing and making these miniatures. The cottages are all authentic examples of vernacular architecture from all around the British Isles. They also have collections from other countries but the British cottages are by far the most popular.

The models are cast from Amorphite, which is a compound David Tate invented, composed of finely ground gypsum with other substances added to it. I just love the exquisite detail that the modellers and painters bring to these little houses. You can display them from any angle and there’s always something interesting to see.

On a trip back to England in the 90s I visited the manufacturing works where they are made. It was really interesting to see the process and the level of detail and hand work that’s involved. The original cottage where the Tates lived, now a museum for past pieces, is set in beautiful gardens. The model of Rose Cottage can only be purchased by visitors to Lilliput Lane and is not available in shops or by mail order. And in a magnificent piece of reverse engineering they have built a full size replica of one of their early cottages, Honeysuckle Cottage, nearby to house the showroom and cafe.

I began collecting these models in 1988 on a trip back to the UK. I’ve bought a few in Australia but they’re really expensive here so mostly I buy some each time I return to England. They’re one of my ‘must have’ holiday souvenirs and my collection currently stands at 37.

I had so much difficulty in selecting a few of the cottages from my collection for this photograph, because I just love them all and choosing was really hard. The Secret Garden (back left with the purple slate roof) is definitely one of my favourites as it was one of my original pieces from that first trip. And I love the Victorian Gothic architecture of the house as well as the intricate detail of the walled garden. The other large one on the right is called Tudor Court and is a model of a Tudor ’shopping mall’. It’s another early one and a favourite.

Many of the models are of houses that really exist, not just ‘in the style of’ designs. The tiny gray stone Bridge House is one such example. I’ve been to this little two roomed 16th century cottage in Ambleside, Cumbria. It is the tiniest of cottages, straddling the river, with one room sitting on top of the other and reached by an outside stone staircase, which must have been a nightmare to climb in the freezing blustery Northern winters. But apparently a family with 6 children once lived in it! This one is a bit extra special as it’s autographed by David Tate when he came on a visit to Australia.

Other related posts:

Walk Softly, and Carry a Large Hatpin
On the Scent – Vintage Perfume Bottles
Confessions of a Collectaholic

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A Stroll Down Lilliput Lane

The extravagant design of hats in the last half of the 19th century combined with the hairstyles, which often involved extra rolls of padding with the hair combed over them, resulted in many hatpins from this era being up to 12″ in length. A formidable weapon in the hands of an angry suffragette! There were even laws enacted which governed the length of hatpins, how they could be worn and restrictions covering wearing them on public transport.

Hatpins were an important accessory in a woman’s wardrobe, so naturally they were designed as beautiful pieces of jewelery. These early hatpins are eagerly sought after by collectors and are hideously expensive. Unfortunately I don’t have any of these gems in my collection.

I started collecting hatpins so I could have something relatively inexpensive to buy when I went cruising Antique Centres if I wasn’t going to buy a piece of porcelain or a perfume bottle for one of my other collections. I didn’t realise that, just like every other collectable, hatpins have a top end of the market side too for the older, fancier ones. So my collection is all early 20th Century examples extending to the 1930s. I try to avoid the modern reproductions that are quite popular at the moment, made with beads, although in the early days I did inadvertently buy a couple.

Hatpin holders are also very collectable and are usually made of porcelain or silver and beautifully decorated. I only have the hand painted Nippon one shown here. But I do love the intricate gold painting on it, which the photo doesn’t really do justice to..

For anyone who is interested in finding out more about vintage hatpins I suggest getting hold of any books on the subject by Lillian Baker.

Other related posts:

A Stroll Down Lilliput Lane
Toby Jugs – Will the real Toby Philpot please stand up
Confessions of a Collectaholic

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Walk softly and carry a long hatpin

Back in 1846 Thomas Goodwin Green, son of a Lincolnshire corn merchant, had a fancy for a lady by the name of Mary Tenniel (sister of Sir John Tenniel the famous illustrator of such books as Alice in Wonderland). He asked her to marry him but got knocked back. So in true romantic spirit, he took his broken heart and sailed for Australia, where he made his fortune as a builder. Fifteen years later he had word that Mary had changed her mind so he returned home in true prodigal fashion, wooed and won his sweetheart and they were married.

Whilst on honeymoon, Green met Henry Wileman who owned the Pottery Works in Church Gresley, Derbyshire. Having sold up his business in Australia, Green was looking for something to do now he was back in the Old Dart so he bought the pottery from Wileman. After all, how hard could it be?

Fortunately he had bought a well run operation and being a strong-minded and determined man he soon made his new business a great success; in the process, setting up a pottery dynasty that lasted until 1964, when it went the way of so many family potteries, and went into receivership. The company assets were purchased by larger outfits who continued trading under the TG Green name.

TG Green expanded into the kitchen and table wares market. And during the first half of the 20th century the pottery produced a number of popular designs. The most famous is Cornishware. I will be writing a post on Cornishware at a later date but my favourite TG Green range is the Streamline kitchen and table ware. This was characterised by a cream coloured body formed into a distinctive rounded shape with a series of green stripes piped onto to it. The stripes are raised on the surface of the pieces making them very tactile. The range is huge and was in production from the mid-1930s to about 1950, But because it was never as popular as the famous Cornishware, Streamline pieces are harder to find, especially the more unusual items.

One of my favourite pieces is the biscuit barrel. I have only ever seen one of its kind but unfortunately the lid on mine smashed. The tall vase-looking piece at the back left is actually an egg beater! As with most of these items, the metal beater thingy has been lost on the rugged journey of life. My most recent acquisition is the rolling pin. These are hard to come by as, being prone to rolling off the table, most never made it to old age.

I only collect the kitchen ware Streamline, leaving the dinner ware stuff alone. Even I have to draw the line somewhere.

Other related posts:

TG Green Cornishware
Toby Jugs – Will the real Toby Philpot please stand up
Confessions of a Collectaholic

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T G Green Streamline

Hollinshead and Kirkham, originally of Burslem in Staffordshire, moved their pottery works to nearby Tunstall in 1890. They catered mainly for the middle class end of the market and, in the main, produced a range of conservatively designed dinner ware. However in the economic slump following the First World War the company needed to do something to address their falling sales. Designer Harold Growcott was their White Knight.

Growcott came up with a range of designs for hand painted porcelain that tapped into the growing interest in all things Art Deco. The designs featured an abstract painted background of two or more colours on which bold fruit or floral designs were hand painted. The result was bold and exciting.

The Delicious Dozen as it came to be known was actually a range of 14 designs, but let’s not be pedantic about a good nickname. The designs were applied to many of the existing pre-war shapes, to give them a new lease of life, as well as some fresh new shapes more in keeping with the Art Deco style. Due to its similar subject matter and large bold painting style H&K has also been dubbed ‘Poor Man’s Moorcroft’ but if the prices I have had to pay for some of my pieces are anything to go by, that’s not a title that fits today’s collecting market.

I’ve photographed some of my favourite pieces from my collection for your viewing pleasure. The name of the fruit design on the all brown background is Luscious, the square platter is the Autumn design and the little floral jug in the back is the Primula design. I particularly love the platters and the cake slice as I use them for special occasions and it’s a great feeling to actually utilise these old pieces.

Other related posts:

The Beauty of Belleek Porcelain
On the Scent – Vintage Perfume Bottles
Confessions of a Collectaholic

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H&K Tunstall – The Delicious Dozen