Notice to eBay™ Auction Sellers (et al.)
This web site is copyrighted, so please do not
"cut and paste" from this site into your online auction descriptions - nor
otherwise plagiarize my work! (Yes, it should go without saying; too bad
I've had to discover it doesn't.)
|
At Last - A New Lladró Book!
The Lladró Guide; A Collector's Reference to Retired Porcelain Figurines in Lladró Brands
My most recent Lladró book has revised and expanded content and
remains the only book in print on this topic that isn't just a catalog. Covers all Lladró and
Lladró-affiliated brands (regular collection, NAO, Zaphir, Golden Memories,
Hispania, Rosal, and Tang) and tells how to distinguish them from imitations and counterfeits.
Revised and expanded content includes
many new photos and a new chapter on future directions for collectors and the company now that it has
passed from family hands. The book is in hard cover, which eliminates
that annoying curl-up that happens with paperback books. You can order the book directly from the publisher, Schiffer Books,
on Amazon,
or from your favorite bookstore using the ISBN 13 number 978-0764358395.
Warning: If you're looking for a catalog
of every retired figurine Lladró ever made, this is not the book for you. If you're looking for beautiful, full-color photos of
representative models and more in-depth and well-researched
information about Lladró and its history and production than you can get in thumbnail photos with captions,
this book is what you're looking for.
Retail Price in Hardcover: $45
|
El Portal Porcelana Now Search Enabled!
Users can
now search for individual items by title name or by number. (Search result
links will open in a separate
window.) To search by model name, simply place the title in quotes - for example, "Boy, Big Hat." That
will bring you to a page displaying a link for the catalog page on which that
model appears. If you know that item's number but not its name,
simply type in 182G (with no brand prefix, but make sure you use the G for NAO
porcelain items made in the regular porcelain formula).
Troubleshooting notes:
- The search by model name will not work if you do not place
the name in quotes.
- The model number search will not work if you place a number
sign, brand name, or any other prefix before the number.
- For non-Gres NAO and non-enameled Zaphir models, the number search will also
not bring you to a catalog page if you do not use the G suffix
immediately after the number. (Some items are catalog listed with a G/M suffix,
but typing just a G will bring you to those as well.)
- The letter suffix
is not required
for model numbers in NAO Gres, Zaphir enamel, and models in Golden
Memories or Hispania.
If you don't know the name or the number of the model, you can, as always, scroll down
to the theme category links at the bottom of each catalog introduction page
to find your figurine/ornament. Please also note that there is, at the bottom
of this home page, a search
function for regular Lladró-marked items that links directly to the excellent catalog at Janet Hammer's
web site, A Retired Collection.
|
Your Spanish
Porcelain
Information Web Site
(Web site last updated 12/14/2019)
In December 2016, Lladró announced that the family has sold its porcelain business to a
venture capital company named PHI Industrial, which has a good reputation for turning around
troubled companies, including such famous names as Procter & Gamble. (The Lladró company has
struggled financially for the last decade or more, and the family considers this sale
the best option for the survival of its porcelain brand.) The new owners have pledged to retain
the brand name, the employees that make it, and the manufacturing facilities at Porcelain City.
From a collecting standpoint, I expect no negative impact to result from this sale.
The process of adding recent issues to this site's NAO catalog is ongoing. I've also revised some of the category names
in the NAO catalog intro so that all the animal categories appear together in the list.
I base my secondary market value ranges on the last retail price for the item when I know what that was.
The reason for this is practical: when an item has been on the market for a number of years before
being retired from production, we have to remember that people were actually buying the item at or near that
last retail price, else it would have been retired earlier. If people were willing to pay that price
at retail, it's reasonable to base secondary market values on that retail foundation. In
a very few cases, however, I have revised the secondary market ranges to begin under the
last retail price if I think that price may have been too rich for the current secondary market. Generally speaking, the more expensive a NAO
model is at retail the harder it will be for the model to attain over, at, or around that retail price.
Estimated values are not an exact science, and, in any case, it is not my job or my prerogative to set secondary market prices.
The market will do its own shaking out. I am merely giving it my best guess as to what a model might bring
when all the stars align well for any given sale. That does not mean every private collector sale would be able to achieve these
estimated values.
"What Is It About This Spanish Porcelain?"
-Peggy Whiteneck
Welcome to your Spanish porcelain information web site! Led by the armada of the Lladró company's several brands, contemporary
Spanish porcelain has taken the collecting world by storm. The several
Lladró porcelain brands include or have included NAO, Rosal, Zaphir,
Golden Memories, and Hispania, but there are also many competitor
companies in the Valencian region of Spain that are unrelated to Lladró, including Nadal, Tengra,
and others. This web site aims to give collectors an information overview
of these several Spanish porcelain brands and companies.
Like so much else in art, 20th century Spanish porcelain tends to inspire the extremes of response. For those who are passionate about it, no explanation is
necessary, and for those who aren't, no explanation is possible.
Lladró's "In the Garden" (#5416G) was
retired in 1996 at a last retail price of $350. Note the bird pecking at
the fringe of the girl's shawl. (Photo by the author from her own
collection.)
Why I Started This Site
The major reason I've launched this web site is the
lack of information available to collectors of Spanish porcelain. It's no
fun at all to collect things if you can't find information about them. I launched the site
in the days between my original book on the core Lladró brand going out of print
and my finding a new publisher who would publish the book I wanted to write, one that
included all Lladró's known brands. In the meantime, I thought I'd try to light
a candle instead of cursing the darkness. Well, the later book
finally came out (see info above), but this web site has gained an international following in the interim, so I've kept
it up.
What About Catalogs for Various Brands?
The best catalog for the "core" or regular Lladró collection
already exists on the following web sites: A Retired Collection.
I see no value to collectors
in duplicating that excellent catalog, so, for those looking to
confirm the identity of a regular-collection Lladró, I'm providing
below a "Search" link
that connects directly to Janet Hammer's site, A Retired Collection, which
I find to be the most comprehensive and user-friendly catalog of core collection
Lladró
online. You can search Janet's site by model number if you know it or by
keyword if you don't! (The search page will open in a separate window, so you won't lose
your place here on "El Portal Porcelana.")
The catalogs here on "El Portal Porcelana" will
include Lladró's other brands, such as NAO, Zaphir, and Golden Memories.
See the banner at left for links to those catalogs, which represent
virtually the only catalogs of these brands that are available to most
collectors. I'm pleased and proud to provide them. Have fun!
Unfortunately, there are no available retail catalogs for either
the Rosal or Tang brands; many of these models were also made and catalogued
in the NAO brand, and I have indicated in the particular listings
for these items in the site's NAO catalog whenever Tang or Rosal
models of these are known to have been made.
Likewise, the smaller, non-Lladró Spanish porcelain makers didn't,
to my knowledge,
produce published catalogs of their work, so it's virtually impossible to
construct web catalogs for those brands or to identify individual items for
collectors. (Sorry!) For generic information on these non-Lladró brands,
click the "Other Companies" link on the left banner.
Please Note: El Portal Porcelana is an information web site ONLY. While I very much welcome email contacts from
serious collectors or anyone else wanting more information on Spanish porcelain,
please do not ask me for sales or acquisition assistance, as I am not involved in
those areas.
|
