El Portal Porcelana
"For People Passionate About Spanish Porcelain"
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For those interested in glass figurines, Fenton Art Glass Beasts, Birds & Butterflies
is another of Peggy's books!
Also for those interested in glass, Fenton Art Glass Fairy Lamps & Lights
is Peggy's latest book! It focuses on small, candle-lit "lamps" that were first used in the
Victorian era to light dark hallways before the invention of gaslight or electricity.
The publisher for these Fenton books has gone out of business, but I am pursuing
other publishing options for revised and expanded editions. Stay tuned! In the
meantime, you may still find advance-ordered and used copies of these books at online booksellers.
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Buying Tips: Caveat Emptor!
Dangers for collectors
to watch out for on the secondary market include the following:
- Counterfeits -
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Have bogus marks that are the wrong color (a sort
of purplish blue instead of the vivid cobalt of the genuine backstamp)
and that have strange curlicues where things like the ® mark over
the "o" in "Lladró" should be.
- Seconds -
- All porcelain factories make them - even Meissen did!
Lladró's are distinguished by the scraping off of the Spanish
bellflower logo on the mark that should appear centered above the
name (see photo). Value is substantially affected by a missing
logo flower. Perfectly good items sold through Lladró outlets in New
York state and Williamsburg, Virginia also have the logo scraped off. Also, in a
sort of Faustian bargain Lladró struck with defendants in a lawsuit against so-called
"gray market" dealers in current issues Lladró (i.e., deealers operating outside
Lladroó's "authorized" network of dealers), the courts determined that gray
market dealers were allowed to continue selling retail Lladró as long as such
dealers also scraped the logo flower amd/or other parts of the mark off the base. The
upshot of all this is that it's vritually impossible to tell whether an items with an altered
mark hasbeen rejected at the factory as a second quality piece or whether it used to be a perfectly
good first quality piece with the logo removed by a Lladró outlet or a gray market
dealer. Because of this ambiguity, serious collectors avoid items with scraped marks.
This 1989 Christmas bell
is difficult to find and
commands strong prices on the secondary market. Not this particular
example, though - not with that scraped off bell-flower logo that should
appear centered above the name. (Photo by the author.)
- Rare "prototypic" items -
- Things that never went into production
and are usually one of a kind samples sometimes sold at the factory. This
is the one exception to the rule when it comes to the missing logo
flower because it's also missing on prototypes! Unlike the seconds and outlet purchases, these are considered highly
desirable and very valuable, but it does take some time and experience
to be able to tell a prototype from a second - or from items that actually
did go into production, but in another Lladró brand called
NAO. (See Items Known to Have Been Produced Under Both
Marks).
- Damaged items -
- Unless the item is old and very difficult to find,
these are not a good investment. Places to watch for damage include
delicate projecting parts such as flowerwork and hands and fingers on human models. Flowerwork
damage is an exception to the rule for depressed value after restoration; Lladró itself
regards a restoration by a competent retorationist using Lladr#243-supplied flower parts
as a restoration to pristine condition. For other missing parts, though (e.g., hands, arms, feet, etc.),
the restorer will have to reconstruct from scratch, and these items will almost always
look as if they have been restored.
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
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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. No reproduction
of any part of this content is permitted without the express permission of the
web site author.
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