New Carlton Ware - It Is Still Being Made!
Although it’s not widely known (or seen), the Carlton Ware brand has been resurrected in recent years by well-known collectables publisher Francis Joseph.
Examples of the company’s new wares can be found on it’s website, www.carltonwaredirect.com and they also offer a newsletter (free initially, but then you have to make a purchase or subscribe for £35 per year…).
I haven’t seen much of this new Carlton Ware around on the secondary market yet - which isn’t surprising, as it is being made in extremely low volumes. This means you can at least be assured of exclusivity if you do buy any of these pieces.
The designs available are a mixture of licensed version of timeless classics - such as the Golliwog and the children’s designs of Mabel Lucie Attwell - and genuinely new designs, mostly by Marie Graves, a ceramic artist based in Stoke on Trent. Many of the shapes, however, are clearly freshened versions of old designs.
If you’re interested in Carlton Ware then it is well worth taking a look, although to me, these wares don’t seem to be being made or marketed intensively enough for Carlton Ware to take a significant place in the market again.
The “new carlton ware” does show up in the secondary market on a regular basis. Especially on ebay. There is now on ebay (3/08) a lot of the new CW teapotsand golly’s the gollys are almost always on ebay. FYI
Comment by charles — March 23, 2008 @ 2:49 am
Fair point. However, they are being made in pretty small numbers - most of those for sale now were made as one of 50-250. I suspect they still seem readily available because they haven’t yet had time to get broken/distributed around the world in peoples’ collections.
Also, some new buyers may (optimistically?) have hoped that they can sell them on for a quick profit, based on their limited edition status.
Comment by Perfect Pieces — March 23, 2008 @ 9:54 am