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The Curious Cases of Zaphir Clones of Models in the Regular Lladró Collection & Zaphir Models with Old NAO marksIt is known that some of the Zaphir models can be found with later NAO marks because, when Lladró closed the Zaphir brand around 1982 or so, any Zaphir models then in production were brought over into the NAO brand. (Many of these were, in fairly short order, also retired from NAO production as well.) I do not consider these items "clones" in the sense I have used that term to describe NAO clones because, in the Zaphir to NAO evolution, we are talking about a natural phase-out of one brand into another. In discussing "clones," then, I am talking about a more episodic "twinning" phenomenon in which a few items made in NAO or Zaphir have also been found with old, impressed core collection marks. For some time, veteran collectors have also been familiar
with the phenomenon of NAO-marked clones of older Lladró pieces, including
some of the core collection pieces catalogued as rare in company sources
(items usually numbered with a decimal point). Once again, sculptor Fulgencio García appears to have been the
link in this mystery of models shared among the three brands. As is
the case with all the NAO clones of core collection items, García was the
core collection sculptor of record for all the Lladró models
that have been found with Zaphir marks (see table below). Thus, even though a 1978
catalog for Zaphir identifies Jose Puche (also a famous sculptor of the
core collection) as "the" sculptor for the Zaphir collection,
it now appears that at least a few of the Zaphir models were sculpted
by García and others.
Stranger still, a few
Zaphir-marked items of core collection pieces have also been found - again,
including at least two of the decimal-point numbered rarities. Recently, also, I was contacted by
Gill Billington of the United Kingdom, who sent me photos of the model and
base of what is the first example I've come across of a Zaphir model with an
older NAO mark (the original brown backstamp), an item that does not appear otherwise
to have been catalogued in the NAO line. What makes all this especially intriguing is that there is no evidence that Zaphir
is as old as either the NAO collection or
the regular Lladró collection. As far as I've been able to determine, Zaphir
was not on the scene much before the late 1970s, giving the other two collections
a good ten years or more of a head start on its production. How, then, Zaphir would have been
recycling older Lladró and NAO models is something of a puzzle.
Whenever I come across another of these odd connections, I find myself wishing I'd been a fly
on the wall to know how this all got started - and how it eventually sorted
itself out into three different brands!
Notes: Zaphir #731, Satyr Group, is listed in the Zaphir price list for 1981 and is presumed to be the same model as Lladró #1008 based on the pattern established by the individual satyr models. It is also fascinating to know that the "Athena" and "Aristotle" models are the only items known to have been made under all three brand marks, as these were also made as NAO!
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