#Middlebury #Antiques
Marks on antiques, especially silver or ceramics, can lead a collector to history and age. However, the mark’s information can sometimes be confusing. A date may be the year the pottery business started. A name may be the name of the seller, not the maker. And sometimes, especially with Asian ceramics, recent copies are so accurate even the old mark is reproduced.
This Wemyss Ware pig was decorated by Joseph Nekola for Jan Plichta. The pre-1952 pig sold for $472.
Wemyss Ware is the name used as a mark by Robert Heron & Son (later called Fife Pottery), which started making creamware in Scotland about 1820. They later used the Weymss mark. During the mid-1800s, European artists were hired. The most famous was Karel Nekola, who stayed for 33 years. In the 1930s, Bovey Pottery of Devon, England, bought the rights to make Wemyss Ware and hired Joseph Nekola Karelson. The pottery by Fife and Bovey is so similar, experts judge the maker by slight color differences. Joseph died in 1952, and very little Wemyss was made in the 1960s and 1970s. But in 1985, Griselda Hill pottery started making it, and they now own the Wemyss Ware trademark.
A ceramic pig that looks like Wemyss sold at a recent Humler and Nolan auction for $472. It is marked “Plichta, London, England” and “Nekola Pinxt Plichta.” Jan Plichta was a pottery and glass wholesaler who worked in London and, by 1916, bought many things from Bovey Pottery. The Latin mark means “Nekola painted design [for] Plichta,” evidence the pig was made before 1952. Very early flower-decorated pigs have auctioned for over $30,000.
Q: I recently found two old dining-room chairs in my attic that I remember using as a child 70 years ago. They have an arched back, six turned spindles and a shaped seat. I remember them having a shiny black finish, but they are very worn. I’m thinking of repainting them, but my son suggests that doing so might reduce their value. Can you tell me what their value is and whether repainting would make them more or less valuable?
A: Repainting or refinishing will lower the value of a piece of furniture if it is a valuable antique, made by a well-known craftsman or finished with a hand-painted technique like grain painting. Your chairs are not very old; they’re probably from the early 1900s. They are worth about $50. So, in your case, repainting them might bring them back to life and raise their decorative value.
Current Prices
Souvenir badge, Atlantic City, bathing girls, woman, swimsuit, navy, white, 2 3/4 x 1 3/4 inches, $80.
Kitchen, kettle, apple butter, copper, rolled rim, iron bail handle, 1800s, 11 1/2 inches, $130.
Alligator, folk art, wood, carved, red glass eyes, nail teeth, articulated jaw, c. 1900, 21 x 5 inches, $610.
Door handle, pock-marked surface, steel, polished, blackened, James Bearden, 19 1/2 x 3 inches, pair, $1,000.
TIP: Try not to vacuum rugs with fringe. The vacuum “eats” corners, damages edge bindings and edges, and tears fringe.
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© 2019 King Features Synd., Inc.
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