I don't know about you, but I still love the Beatles and their music. Their lyrics and melodies are still good today even after all these years. I have always avoided trying to obtain some of their early memorabilia as I thought it would always be expensive, but I stumbled on to something quite fun and relatively cheap, Bubble Gum Trading Cards. Just like baseball cards, these were sold in bubble gum packs with various beatles pictures on the front.…
In this installment, we will take a look at one of the biggest factors that affect value. Its pattern and decoration. Many manufactures gave patterns names which they sometimes printed on the bottom with thier mark or backstamp, but this is not always the case. It helps to know when you are researching the value, but is not always necessary.
What does the pattern look like? Is it modern and trendy? Simple or Elegant? There are some patterns that are timeless and do not go out of style, but a lot of the busy designs have not translated well as styles changed over the years.…
With real estate it is location, location, location. With china and porcelain it's condition, condition, condition. There are some exceptions, where a pattern is extremely rare. Your family may have been using it for years, but the person who is going to buy your piece doesn't want the defects.
So what affects the value of a piece?
Small nicks or chips to pieces generally get put into the donation pile unless they are a foot of a tureen or large item, but the value is hugely decreased.…
In this post, we will tackle the question of, Is my china hand painted? This is a key item in determining value, especially if the design is complex. So how do we tell? This may seem like an easy question, but it can be tricky.
First, a little bit of history. All porcelain and china was hand painted to start with – a very time consuming process. Early in the 1820s, a process was developed in Staffordshire England, the great porcelain and pottery up of England, that was called transferware.…
This is probably the number one question people ask, and of course they want an easy answer. As with life, there are no easy answers, but hopefully we can give you some of the right questions to ask so you can at least get an idea. So where do we start? We start by answering these questions: