Are my Wedgwood items worth more?
Discussion
God this is bloody depressing.
My wife and I have a lot of English bone china, eartenware and Waterford crystal.
We did visit the Royal Doulton factory in Stoke a few years back and the writing was on the wall then as a lot of production was being outsourced to China / other Far Eastern countries.
I don't know if I am typical but my view is that if I want English bone China it can't just be an English design, but needs to actually be made in England. Otherwise it's just lumped in with all the mass market product.
With Royal Doulton / Royal Albert product you can tell where it was made just by looking on the bottom of the pieces.
If you have an incomplete set of anything now would be the time to complete, before it becomes unavailable. There are shops in Stoke that specialise in doing just this.
Doulton figurines (not my thing) would be very collectible and you can tell good ones from second rate by the detailing of the faces & fingers, the more pronounced they are the more the piece is worth, assuming colour & glaze are perfect.
Of all the China manufacturers Spode has been the smartest - production & design is in Stoke, everything you buy is the real deal.
My wife and I have a lot of English bone china, eartenware and Waterford crystal.
We did visit the Royal Doulton factory in Stoke a few years back and the writing was on the wall then as a lot of production was being outsourced to China / other Far Eastern countries.
I don't know if I am typical but my view is that if I want English bone China it can't just be an English design, but needs to actually be made in England. Otherwise it's just lumped in with all the mass market product.
With Royal Doulton / Royal Albert product you can tell where it was made just by looking on the bottom of the pieces.
If you have an incomplete set of anything now would be the time to complete, before it becomes unavailable. There are shops in Stoke that specialise in doing just this.
Doulton figurines (not my thing) would be very collectible and you can tell good ones from second rate by the detailing of the faces & fingers, the more pronounced they are the more the piece is worth, assuming colour & glaze are perfect.
Of all the China manufacturers Spode has been the smartest - production & design is in Stoke, everything you buy is the real deal.
for the love of God will you lot shut up, my missus may hear you!!!
She already has the stuff coming out of our ears ... i think she is up to a full 10 piece dinner service in something called Columbia Sage Green ...
there is only 2 of us and she is usually too afraid to bring it out for dinner parties 
She already has the stuff coming out of our ears ... i think she is up to a full 10 piece dinner service in something called Columbia Sage Green ...
there is only 2 of us and she is usually too afraid to bring it out for dinner parties GavinPearson said:
God this is bloody depressing.
My wife and I have a lot of English bone china, eartenware and Waterford crystal.
We did visit the Royal Doulton factory in Stoke a few years back and the writing was on the wall then as a lot of production was being outsourced to China / other Far Eastern countries.
I don't know if I am typical but my view is that if I want English bone China it can't just be an English design, but needs to actually be made in England. Otherwise it's just lumped in with all the mass market product.
With Royal Doulton / Royal Albert product you can tell where it was made just by looking on the bottom of the pieces.
If you have an incomplete set of anything now would be the time to complete, before it becomes unavailable. There are shops in Stoke that specialise in doing just this.
Doulton figurines (not my thing) would be very collectible and you can tell good ones from second rate by the detailing of the faces & fingers, the more pronounced they are the more the piece is worth, assuming colour & glaze are perfect.
Of all the China manufacturers Spode has been the smartest - production & design is in Stoke, everything you buy is the real deal.
Major respect to you.My wife and I have a lot of English bone china, eartenware and Waterford crystal.
We did visit the Royal Doulton factory in Stoke a few years back and the writing was on the wall then as a lot of production was being outsourced to China / other Far Eastern countries.
I don't know if I am typical but my view is that if I want English bone China it can't just be an English design, but needs to actually be made in England. Otherwise it's just lumped in with all the mass market product.
With Royal Doulton / Royal Albert product you can tell where it was made just by looking on the bottom of the pieces.
If you have an incomplete set of anything now would be the time to complete, before it becomes unavailable. There are shops in Stoke that specialise in doing just this.
Doulton figurines (not my thing) would be very collectible and you can tell good ones from second rate by the detailing of the faces & fingers, the more pronounced they are the more the piece is worth, assuming colour & glaze are perfect.
Of all the China manufacturers Spode has been the smartest - production & design is in Stoke, everything you buy is the real deal.
Personally I can take or leave pottery, but the thing is that you have to consider at this point the lies about inflation. The lie being that there is no inflation problem.
O.K. So you can't afford to buy English pottery made in England any more, so you buy cheap tat that looks the same from China. It's made by people who are paid the equivalent of a bag of rice per day/week, but who cares? We can still ship it round the world in bulk, and it comes out cheaper. The net result, the government can lie about inflation.
The reality is that inflation is much worse than it seems, and certainly worse than we are told. We the British, cannot afford to buy British goods. That's bad. It's worse because the only people who cant afford the far eastern crap, are the actual far eastern people who throw the pots, and load the kilns.
We just moved the exploitation abroad. That everybody we quote did it too, does not make it right.
Socialism, my arse. People think of the Nazis as a party of the far right. It was a socialist nee left wing party. Forget the people involved then, just consider the concepts. That's where the lies are taking us.
There is no clear indication that lying about the true cost of inflation leads to mass extermination (clearly it's extreme and tenuous), but not being truthful about such a broad concept cannot go without any kind of consequence.
Certainly a easy way to offset the current economic crisis, would be to stir up a war that we're not involved in, and supply arms to both sides. Can't imagine them telling the truth about that. Thankfully we've become pretty sensitised to that one. Maybe they wouldn't get away with it.
Perhaps they need schemes that are more subtle, more deniable. In incremental steps, all these things look O.K. compared with what we did previously. Just like the credit bubble.
People. Bah.
Edited by dilbert on Tuesday 6th January 04:28
dilbert said:
GavinPearson said:
God this is bloody depressing.
My wife and I have a lot of English bone china, eartenware and Waterford crystal.
We did visit the Royal Doulton factory in Stoke a few years back and the writing was on the wall then as a lot of production was being outsourced to China / other Far Eastern countries.
I don't know if I am typical but my view is that if I want English bone China it can't just be an English design, but needs to actually be made in England. Otherwise it's just lumped in with all the mass market product.
With Royal Doulton / Royal Albert product you can tell where it was made just by looking on the bottom of the pieces.
If you have an incomplete set of anything now would be the time to complete, before it becomes unavailable. There are shops in Stoke that specialise in doing just this.
Doulton figurines (not my thing) would be very collectible and you can tell good ones from second rate by the detailing of the faces & fingers, the more pronounced they are the more the piece is worth, assuming colour & glaze are perfect.
Of all the China manufacturers Spode has been the smartest - production & design is in Stoke, everything you buy is the real deal.
Major respect to you.My wife and I have a lot of English bone china, eartenware and Waterford crystal.
We did visit the Royal Doulton factory in Stoke a few years back and the writing was on the wall then as a lot of production was being outsourced to China / other Far Eastern countries.
I don't know if I am typical but my view is that if I want English bone China it can't just be an English design, but needs to actually be made in England. Otherwise it's just lumped in with all the mass market product.
With Royal Doulton / Royal Albert product you can tell where it was made just by looking on the bottom of the pieces.
If you have an incomplete set of anything now would be the time to complete, before it becomes unavailable. There are shops in Stoke that specialise in doing just this.
Doulton figurines (not my thing) would be very collectible and you can tell good ones from second rate by the detailing of the faces & fingers, the more pronounced they are the more the piece is worth, assuming colour & glaze are perfect.
Of all the China manufacturers Spode has been the smartest - production & design is in Stoke, everything you buy is the real deal.
Personally I can take or leave pottery, but the thing is that you have to consider at this point the lies about inflation. The lie being that there is no inflation problem.
O.K. So you can't afford to buy English pottery made in England any more, so you buy cheap tat that looks the same from China. It's made by people who are paid the equivalent of a bag of rice per day/week, but who cares? We can still ship it round the world in bulk, and it comes out cheaper. The net result, the government can lie about inflation.
The reality is that inflation is much worse than it seems, and certainly worse than we are told. We the British, cannot afford to buy British goods. That's bad. It's worse because the only people who cant afford the far eastern crap, are the actual far eastern people who throw the pots, and load the kilns.
We just moved the exploitation abroad. That everybody we quote did it too, does not make it right.
Socialism, my arse. People think of the Nazis as a party of the far right. It was a socialist nee left wing party. Forget the people involved then, just consider the concepts. That's where the lies are taking us.
There is no clear indication that lying about the true cost of inflation leads to mass extermination (clearly it's extreme and tenuous), but not being truthful about such a broad concept cannot go without any kind of consequence.
Certainly a easy way to offset the current economic crisis, would be to stir up a war that we're not involved in, and supply arms to both sides. Can't imagine them telling the truth about that. Thankfully we've become pretty sensitised to that one. Maybe they wouldn't get away with it.
Perhaps they need schemes that are more subtle, more deniable. In incremental steps, all these things look O.K. compared with what we did previously. Just like the credit bubble.
People. Bah.
Edited by dilbert on Tuesday 6th January 04:28
elster said:
How the f**k did you manage to rant about that, it clearly has nothing to do with....well...anything!
Thanks- I thought it was just me. I think this has to be the most creative application of Godwins Law ever. 
To link Wedgwood pottery with mass Extermination takes either a wild mind or some seriously good drink.Edited by glazbagun on Tuesday 6th January 05:00
Well I guess I got a mystic meg (tm) crystal ball.
Perhaps I'm nuts, but I'd be interested to hear why you think they have failed.
The obvious answer is that they had too much debt, and couldn't get their hands on Gordo's bank of toytown dosh.
I suppose we can al be deluded for a while, perhaps indefinately. The only answer I can see you suggesting is the same as that of the Gordo clones........
"Well it started out there in the world somewhere!"
Seriously....
Gordo, the leading figure of UK parliament (and if you believe him the leader of the world), was on the telly on Sunday morning. When Andrew Marr asked him;
"In the face of the UK's current difficulties and as Chancellor for the last ten years what would you have done differently to avoid the current an looming difficulties?"
Gordo said;
"I have been saying for the last decade that this credit crunch would happen. As a result I have been asking for better international regulatory controls to prevent this predictable outcome from occuring."
Andrew Marr said;
"Pehaps, but I asked you what would you have done differently?"
Gordo said;
"Well I wouldn't have failed to get the controls".
So.....
I find myself considering, that not only did Godo fail on the world stage to get what nobody thought he could achieve. He also failed the country because he didn't do the things at home, he could have done, to alleviate the current pressures.
Why is this about inflation?
Well, inflation is whatever he considers it to be. If the only thing that looks like inflation is rising crude oil prices, then inflation isn't very much.
When people can't afford to buy British plates, bowls, and teapots, then it's because we can't afford to pay the people who make them. The people who make them end up out of work.
If we cant afford to buy said items, then it's because of inflation.
Obviously there is a gap of some sort between truth and reality. Some people call that lies.
So, then it's a fairly short hop to the idea that the Nazis probably wouldn't have got away with the holocaust, had they been up front about it.
Had Gordo not lied to himself about inflation by setting his metrics in a way that would please people, then he could have acted on the UK economy to prevent it. He does have some control over the UK economy, but he squandered it, so he could look good in the short term.
Nowadays the lies are all covered under the banner "The generally accepted economic wisdom".
Ithankyou!
Perhaps I'm nuts, but I'd be interested to hear why you think they have failed.
The obvious answer is that they had too much debt, and couldn't get their hands on Gordo's bank of toytown dosh.
I suppose we can al be deluded for a while, perhaps indefinately. The only answer I can see you suggesting is the same as that of the Gordo clones........
"Well it started out there in the world somewhere!"
Seriously....
Gordo, the leading figure of UK parliament (and if you believe him the leader of the world), was on the telly on Sunday morning. When Andrew Marr asked him;
"In the face of the UK's current difficulties and as Chancellor for the last ten years what would you have done differently to avoid the current an looming difficulties?"
Gordo said;
"I have been saying for the last decade that this credit crunch would happen. As a result I have been asking for better international regulatory controls to prevent this predictable outcome from occuring."
Andrew Marr said;
"Pehaps, but I asked you what would you have done differently?"
Gordo said;
"Well I wouldn't have failed to get the controls".
So.....
I find myself considering, that not only did Godo fail on the world stage to get what nobody thought he could achieve. He also failed the country because he didn't do the things at home, he could have done, to alleviate the current pressures.
Why is this about inflation?
Well, inflation is whatever he considers it to be. If the only thing that looks like inflation is rising crude oil prices, then inflation isn't very much.
When people can't afford to buy British plates, bowls, and teapots, then it's because we can't afford to pay the people who make them. The people who make them end up out of work.
If we cant afford to buy said items, then it's because of inflation.
Obviously there is a gap of some sort between truth and reality. Some people call that lies.
So, then it's a fairly short hop to the idea that the Nazis probably wouldn't have got away with the holocaust, had they been up front about it.
Had Gordo not lied to himself about inflation by setting his metrics in a way that would please people, then he could have acted on the UK economy to prevent it. He does have some control over the UK economy, but he squandered it, so he could look good in the short term.
Nowadays the lies are all covered under the banner "The generally accepted economic wisdom".
Ithankyou!
Edited by dilbert on Tuesday 6th January 06:13
dilbert said:
Perhaps I'm nuts, but I'd be interested to hear why you think they have failed.
There are obviously the financial reasons but surely a lot of stuff they priduce just isn't that popular in the modern world anymore. Most people don't care where their plates are made and a decent set of white dinner plates can be bought almost anywhere these days, are a lot more durable etc etc.Surely china should be worth more if it's made in China? I mean English manufacturers used to be envious of the quality of Chinese china?
thehawk said:
Surely china should be worth more if it's made in China? I mean English manufacturers used to be envious of the quality of Chinese china?
I have to admit that makes me chuckle ... the product is called china, and people don't want it made in ..... China Hey hum!!
I am sure that my wife will be able to give me a lesson on why i am being an idiot ... she usually does
thehawk said:
dilbert said:
Perhaps I'm nuts, but I'd be interested to hear why you think they have failed.
There are obviously the financial reasons but surely a lot of stuff they priduce just isn't that popular in the modern world anymore. Most people don't care where their plates are made and a decent set of white dinner plates can be bought almost anywhere these days, are a lot more durable etc etc.Surely china should be worth more if it's made in China? I mean English manufacturers used to be envious of the quality of Chinese china?
In time we won't be able to afford foreign China either.
Being isolationist, isn't the answer, and that's one of the very few things that Gordo says that I agree with. But there again, it's too easy to become the victim of a trade war. If you don't take part in a war of which you are a target, the reality is that you loose.
You have to think about who it is that would buy Wedgewood. When those people can't afford it you know something is up.
FWIW, it's Delftware that I think you're thinking about, and the china clay for that used to come from Cornwall, until Imerys decided to shut it down, a year or so back.
If you turn over that stone, you find all manner of creepie crawlies, which have many similar overtones to the current nasties. True stories, of imperialism, trade wars, globalisation, explotation, the lot.
You really have to look at the simplicity of the economic model for pottery, to realise that clay is like oil. You dig it out of the ground cheaply and in bulk. Package it up, and sell it on with good margins. If we can't make money at that, then there is nothing we can make money at.
Edited by dilbert on Tuesday 6th January 07:13
The funny (as in strange) thing about our trip round the Royal Doulton factory was talking to the workers doing the demonstrations. They were decent, honest people who had been there for years. Having worked with many such people I am sure they would be your grassroots Labour supporter.
HOWEVER what I heard was that they were fed up with outsourcing, Stoke going to the dogs, and Serbs / Bosnians coming to live there. Many of them were voting BNP at the next election.
Now that's hardly a great sample of people but it has some value as a litmus test. If this sort of collapse of industry continues, combined with no control on who gets to stay in Britain and the general trading policy the BNP could get a dangerous hold on British politics.
HOWEVER what I heard was that they were fed up with outsourcing, Stoke going to the dogs, and Serbs / Bosnians coming to live there. Many of them were voting BNP at the next election.
Now that's hardly a great sample of people but it has some value as a litmus test. If this sort of collapse of industry continues, combined with no control on who gets to stay in Britain and the general trading policy the BNP could get a dangerous hold on British politics.
thehawk said:
dilbert said:
Perhaps I'm nuts, but I'd be interested to hear why you think they have failed.
There are obviously the financial reasons but surely a lot of stuff they priduce just isn't that popular in the modern world anymore. Most people don't care where their plates are made and a decent set of white dinner plates can be bought almost anywhere these days, are a lot more durable etc etc.Surely china should be worth more if it's made in China? I mean English manufacturers used to be envious of the quality of Chinese china?
The trouble is, when the owners get greedy and make product that strays away from core values it completely loses to the point to the core buyer who bought it in the first place.
Chinese China is actually very good, and if W-W had got a product line made by a company with Ming or Qing heritage then they would be selling a top notch product that would be perceived as worth buying. Unfortunately they sold product from places such as Indonesia. It's just not the same.
Burberry lost the plot a few years back and marketed product to non-core buyers, turning off core buyers particularly in the UK.
IMHO a lot of brands can have a high perceived value, yet be bought by practically anybody, but they keep their value because they don't compromise their principles. Coca-cola is the gold standard of soft drinks. Anybody can buy a bottle of Champagne, but Champagne always sells for a premium over the majority of grape beverages. Rolexes can be bought by anyody who has 5K, and that's for a new one, but they've never produced a bargain basement Rolex. If you want one of those then you get one secondhand or buy a Tudor.
The W-W take on Rolex would have been - "ooh - we're making a profit on all these watches, let's sell more". They'd have tried to expand in emerging markets and sold a few to the newly wealthy. That's OK. Then they'd have made the Tudor range take on the Rolex name to simplify marketing communications. That would be the first nail in the coffin. Then they'd have faces made in fashionable colours, with fake diamonds etc. And outsourced the perpetual mechanism to a supplier of quartz internals. And eventually the brand would have no value.
Jump back to W-W's core business and you'll see that their constant devaluing of core values would lead to an inevitable demise.
XJSJohn said:
Columbia Sage Green ...
Has that been legalised in Singa now???!!!
And...
XJSJohn said:
I am sure that my wife will be able to give me a lesson on why i am being an idiot ... she usually does
Based on this and earlier comments where Mrs XJS has castigated you for your... erm... hobby, are things lacking a little domestic harmony up at XJS Towers???If so join t'club!
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