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"More on Identical Models Found with Multiple Marks!"-Peggy WhiteneckRecently, I was contacted by a collector by the name of Jose Juan Nadal Cuesta, who has an amazing collection of some of the oldest NAO models but with various marks. This includes a complete collection of all the early cat models, all the early stylized dove models, an entire early rabbit collection, and both the early dog with and without snail models. His collection includes some models that I never knew existed, including a reclining cat from the very earliest NAO cats ever made and a double model of the stylized doves that I had never seen before. Because of the extensive nature of this collection, I felt it was worth an entire page
of its own on this web site, and I'm extremely grateful to Jose Nadal for providing all
the photos seen on this page together with explanatory titles. (See also this
Rosal page for a
photo of a squirrel model from Jose's collection.)
All the single model doves in this photo are known to have been made with both impressed NAO and impressed regular Lladró marks. The double model, however, is one I'd never seen before Jose sent me this photo. ( For the doves, the marks are an impressed Lladró and impressed NAO. For the collection of cats, note that the reclining cat had previously
been unknown to me, and Jose's could well be the only complete set of these cats in existence.
The marks are as follows: impressed NAO, Tang, and no mark at all - not even a country of
origin. These last were probably marked with original paper labels that may have been either
Lladró or Tang.
One of the dogs with snail is marked with a blue and white paper Lladró label, which
could also account for some items that have shown up, both in Jose's collection
and elsewhere, with no mark at all but that are obviously made by Lladró.
The rabbits, of which there are five distinct models in this pjoto, are likewise perhaps the only complete collection of these models known.
One is marked with a blue backstamp "Made in Spain." For the stretching rabbit shown at the lower
left of the photo, note that another collector has
a very similar version with a green
Zaphir backstamp (but with both ears laid against the animal's back vs. one ear raised
in Jose's model). All of the rabbits on the lower
row of the photo are very similar, if not identical, to very early catalogued versions
with decimal-point serial numbers in the regular Lladró collection. (The left-right
orientation appears opposite, but this could be a function of Lladró's cataloguing photography,
which is notorious for reversing photographic negatives in its publications.)
As previously shown in
a dog model from Jose Luis Gonzalez's
collection,
Jose's Nadal's collection proves that items marked with a blue Made in Spain backstamp
may actually be Tang. Jose Nadal's collection also shows that
unmarked items may be either Tang or even early regular collection Lladró from which paper
stickers have gone missing. (Some of them may also be
Rosal, as we know that Lladró
conceived of that brand for a specific competitive purpose and did not
expect to keep it in production very long; consequently, the company marked
many items in that brand with paper labels though they can also occasionally be found with
impressed brand name marks.) It would have made little sense to have produced the models simultaneously with different marks,
so, based on that logic, it has been my assumption that the marks represent some kind of
chronological and evolutionary sequence in Lladró brands. However, it remains unclear
what that sequence was and which of the brands came first.
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 The logo background and side border graphic on this site are provided courtesy
of Absolute Background Textures Archive (www.grsites.com/textures). All other
content and graphics on this site are © Peggy Whiteneck except as otherwise noted in individual
photographic credits. No reproduction
of any part of this content is permitted without the express permission of the
web site author. |
