In 1999, the Wedgwood Museum at Barlaston closed to make way for a new factory visitors’ centre. Since then, Wedgwood’s vast collection of ceramics, manuscripts and other historical material has been kept in storage, unavailable to the public.
That’s all set to change this summer when a brand new Wedgwood Museum is due to open in Stoke-on-Trent. It will have cost £10m and is expected to draw 100,000 visitors a year.
The new Museum building itself is almost complete and is due to be handed over to Wedgwood on the 23rd January - leaving around six months for the Wedgwood Museum Trust team to fit out the museum ready for opening in late summer.
The Trust is the custodian of more than 8,000 pieces of Wedgwood ceramics together with more than 75,000 manuscripts and documents - a unique and utterly irreplacable collection.
For almost 250 years, Wedgwood have produced some of the finest quality decorative ceramics in the world. It should be fantastic to be able to have some of this material on display again - we will certainly be making a beeline for the new museum this autumn.
We’re always trying to find ways to improve the Perfect Pieces site - especially to make it easier to find what you’re looking for.
It occurred to us recently that while finding something by name isn’t too difficult, finding a selection of pieces within a certain price range was pretty near impossible.
We’ve now introduced our ’search by price range’ feature - it’s just below the main menu bar, near the top of the screen. If you’re looking for a gift (or a treat for yourself), you’ll more than likely have a price range in mind.
You can now see all the pieces on the site in a certain price range simply by clicking on the relevant link. At any one time we usually have at least 100 pieces in stock, with prices starting from under £25 and finishing well over £500.
You can now see all of the pieces in one price range - regardless of manufacturer - just by clicking on the apropriate price range:
We hope you’ll find this useful - let us know what you think!
Combining form and function isn’t always easy - and it certainly isn’t always very common in the world of computers. So what kind of computer can you buy for an Art Deco enthusiast who likes to buy antiques online?
How about one of these?
(Picture borrowed from and copyright of Jeffrey Stephenson / slipperyskip.com)
This work of art is actually a fully-functional PC in a deceptively small case - take a look at the photos on Stephenson’s website to see the scale of the case compared to a drinks can.
Retired engineer Stephenson is legendary in custom PC circles for building beautifully finished, Art Deco inspried PCs. This unit is just one of several he has built and exhibited and is not for sale. He will build them to order - but expect a hefty price tag for such hand-finished loveliness.
Take a look at some of Stephenson’s other Art Deco-inspried PC designs here.
January’s edition of our (almost) monthly newsletter has now gone online. It takes a look at Whitefriars’ textured range of moulded glass, which was made from 1967-80. In recent years it has become popular with retro enthusiasts and has become quite mainstream in its appeal.
In the newsletter, I’ve taken a look at the choices of colour and shape available, explained how these large,
chunky pieces were made and provided links to the two best Whitefriars websites on the net - whitefriars.com and whitefriarsorg.org.
Click here for the newsletter - I hope you enjoy it.