“Oh, to be in England now that April’s there……”

Of course the poet Robert Browning couldn’t possibly have been talking about the all time record rainfall April we have just had, could he readers? No indeedy. Mind you, half the country has a hose pipe ban. Couldn’t script the stupidity of it, could you? Rule Britannia, eh! 

It has been an absolutely mega month on eBay for us CW addicts. It has been raining ceramic magic all month from beginning to end. Sorry Harvey, this month it will be a very looooooooong blog! In fact I could have written 2 equally good blogs this month, so let’s get right into it…………

PETUNIA 1987 teapot.

I am going to start with 3 bits of early blush for a change this month. andrew.crossley.antiques listed a lovely quatrefoil shape teapot in the PETUNIA 1987 pattern. Real quality. Unsurprisingly it attracted blush fans far and wide and raised £157.99. Is it as pretty as it looks, buyer? It certainly looks a lovely piece.

POPPY 752 dessert set

This is the earliest pattern number I have featured (so far) in my blog. olliesdad1943 gave us a beautiful dessert set in POPPY 752. I can’t understand why only one bidder was interested in a complete and undamaged set from the very beginning of the CW story. The £23.00 which was paid does not do this set justice in any way in my opinion. Once again, I am compelled to ask you, readers, what are you doing?

Early and elegant ewers 56/1752

Right at the front of the file marked “What a pity” was a pair of early slender and elegant ewers numbered 56/1752 sold by johnfandmaryp. Current thinking suggests this numbering style was used on higher price items such as these splendid pieces (top of the range as we say now). Both the pattern and the shape are extremely rare. One of the leading collectors of blush commented to me that although they were damaged he had to have them as he had only seen the pattern once before in all his years of collecting. Say no more.

JAZZ 3352 DON vase

 It is always interesting to see an item on eBay having previously seen it in the flesh. potteryvillage-dot did a little restoration on a JAZZ 3352 ruby ground DON vase, often now called an ice bucket, which he had bought at auction in January. After a 20 bid exchange it went to a lucky bidder for £728.00, but she had better move it sooner rather than later, or one of her cats might knock it off its perch. I don’t think this pot deserves any more oopsy daisy dropsy, do you?

BELL 3788 7” conical dish

A really lovely BELL 3788 7” conical dish in the same colourway followed very soon after. 9 bidders wanted this little gem. The winner had to pay the seller mosaic787 only £150.00 owing to a tiny chip to the back of the rim. Is it as small as it looks, buyer? Is it in pride of place where another pet can’t get at it?

Mandarins Chatting 3653 temple vases

12” tall Mandarins Chatting 3653 temple vases don’t often come by in pairs, even with some restoration to both. UK seller lujesjaz offered said rare jars though and sold them for £650.00. What a display they will make! If they are bought for sale, you wanna sell ‘em, buyer? Lurrrrvly!

Floral embossed ANEMONE tea for two

Enough ruby lustre pots, for now at least. A tea for two set in the floral embossed ANEMONE offered as a Buy it Now by 1stepahead at £395.00 was soon snapped up despite a couple of small chips and some crazing. Always sought after, this pattern and set usually finds a buyer at prices in this bracket and this lot was no exception.

Sunflower Geometric 3334 vase

Readers will no doubt remember the 6” Sunflower Geometric 3334 vase sold by diddybox for £275.00 recently, well it made a speedy repeat appearance this month having been briefly in the care of david010746 and this time reached a much higher £500.00.  You never know, it might appear again one day.

MIKADO 2364 candle sticks

Jaxwel67 probably likes MIKADO 2364 candle sticks. He probably likes them even more after he auctioned a nice pair for the considerable sum of £157.22. Happily, I am informed that they are just perfick.

Carre 3658 HANDCRAFT handled cigarette box S923

On the other hand, well known collector/seller cpm1947 has probably ended up disappointed for the second month running when selling a lovely HANDCRAFT Carre 3658 cigarette box and making only £57.15. Another case of what is up with you readers? Ok, it had a couple of tiny chips, but I have seen it on display and it is nice. The buyer got a bargain here I reckon.

Eden 3989 charger

Similarly, ungaas may well have felt the same when only receiving bids from 1 bidder for a 13” Eden (AKA Tiger Tree) 3989 charger. It probably deserved a much higher price. I bet the buyer is delighted.

Heron & Magical Tree 4159 triangular dish

Back to the ruby lustre again. Lightning then struck ungaas right in the wallet again as exactly the same thing happened with a 10” triangular dish in Heron & Magical Tree 4159. This time the price was £647.99 with only 1 bidder prepared to pay the opening bid price. Having said which, if ungaas is very, very old and had it from new, the label on the back says that it was sold originally for 11/6d (this is 56½ pence in decimal currency), which has got to be a good profit, though the average week’s wages was then about £1! Patience is a virtue as they say.

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BELL 3788 covered vase S311

 

Another lovely piece, this time in BELL 3788 was a 7” covered vase which was Buy-it-now/ONOed by vanilla-pods. It found a taker at £600.00. Almost mint, by the looks of it. A pride of place piece, if ever I saw one.

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SKETCHING BIRD 3889 biscuit barrel

 

Keeping with the ruby theme (and it really has been a theme this month, readers) glad-findings brought to the table a cracker barrel in an unusual deco shape in SKETCHING BIRD 3889. This one reached £360.00. Considering the rarity of the shape and the nice pattern, were you disappointed by the final price, seller?

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Nightingale 3562 table lamp

 

 

Nightingale 3562 lamp bases don’t come along very often, either, do they? Two were hatched out this Spring in quick succession. One was not sold as it didn’t reach its reserve price, but the other one, listed by mel1online soared skywards to £515.00.

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Devil’s Copse 3769 CONE bowl S1062

 

My personal favourite piece this month was a fantastic 9” Devil’s Copse 3769 conical dish in yellow (yes, I did say yellow)! After 7 bidders had landed 15 mighty blows, seller mackems1 can pocket a highly satisfying £759.00. Luvly jubbly, Rodders! I am sure both the buyer and seller will be delighted with the outcome. Are you both?

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GUM FLOWER 3794 ginger jar

 

mackems1 was on a roll now. Next up was a GUM FLOWER 3794  ginger jar. A big lump this one, at 11” in height. GUM FLOWER always does fairly well, so mackems1 will have to make enough room in that bulging pocket for another £102.00.

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Forest Tree 3238 cigarette box S356

A stunning FORREST TREE 3238 cigarette box on little bun feet and with lashings of 24 carat splashed all over it pushed the GUM FLOWER ginger jar out of the way and demanded our attention. 7 bidders “went down to the woods today”, but nobody “got a big surprise” when this pot made £304.00 for markyeva1968.

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Holly 3418 HANDCRAFT ginger jar with cracked cover

Things were hotting up now, as even the French started to get in on the act, with the charmingly named seller spit941 (love it, another great id name – as the seller is French registered, I wonder if it is really El Hadji Diouf – football fans only) offering an 8” lidded ginger jar in Holly 3418, a HANDCRAFT pattern, which spiked its way up to a massive £1156.22, but alas readers, all was not well. After the end of the auction the buyer was informed the lid had a number of very visible cracks. Now, this buyer doesn’t do cracks, let alone when not advised of them until after the auction ends, so he emailed me to tell me how mad he was (quite rightly). Needless to say the sale was not completed and the item was listed again as a Buy-it-now/ ONO with the damage pictured. It went quickly for £413.92. I bet the first buyer felt like somebody had nicked his ice cream before he even had one lick.

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Scroll HANDCRAFT vase S467

Before we had time to wipe our brows and draw a raggedy breath another piece of HANDCRAFT with Scroll, this time a 6” vase in a pale blue colourway came up. Thankfully, this piece was said to be mint. Only 2 eBayers bid this time, but what lofty bids they were! tyler*95 found himself £1177.13 the richer, but what a beauty he has lost from his collection, readers. Did it hurt to part with it? Let us know.

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PERSIAN GARDEN 3894 vase S466

Yet another wonderful rarity was soon available. This time it was a 5½” PERSIAN GARDEN 3894 vase on a sumptuous graduated turquoise ground. My little gob was proper smacked, let me tell you. I would have loved this one, but it went stratospheric, making £620.00 after 34 bids. Buyer, please tell me, is it as good as it looks on screen? I bet the seller, potteryvillage-dot is as happy as only a happy thing could be. Are you happy with the outcome too, potteryvillage-dot?

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Lacecap Hydrangea 3969 vase S456

 

A seller who is not quite as actively selling CW as she used to is carltonwarekath. I suppose it is getting harder and harder to find good stuff at a resalable price. However, she found a nice 6½” vase in the red ground Lacecap Hydrangea 3969. 8 bidders fancied it, so it made £93.87. Are you happy with this amount, Kathy? I do hope you and Tony are well, by the way.

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Birds on Bough 3394 jug S789

 

Birds on Bough 3394 is a pattern I am not too keen on, but plenty of you are. Despite some wear to the gilding on the handle, the 7¾” jug listed by appitantiques made a creditable £80.15 after 10 bids. As I say, not my cup of tea, but I am sure the buyer will find it eminently drinkable, so to speak.

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JAZZ STITCH 3655 jug S789

 

Only 30 minutes later, another similarly sized and shaped jug ended, this time in JAZZ STITCH 3655. I am a big fan of this pattern, but my hand was stayed by the wear to the gilding. Nevertheless, this is a seriously deco pattern and always makes money. Despite the wear it reached a chunky £294.00 for seller getcarter3.

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Crested Bird & Waterlily 3529 vase S217

 

As the end of April raced toward us, a nice little Crested Bird & Waterlily 3529 6” vase did too. wenynot put this one up for sale. It had a little bit of crazing on the pale colours, but nothing excessive. Unfortunately it only made £112.00. I predict we will see this one again one day.

 

 

 

Lastly…….  Play the Game

In some respects I am of course highly flattered to be quoted verbatim in a seller’s listing, but if you are going to do so, I would be very grateful if an extra zero is not added to the price I have quoted for a sold item, the currency is not changed and the wording itself is not about a piece with completely different attributes. This is absolutely not acceptable to me as it is misleading for eBay buyers and I will not be any party to that. I am not all prissy about this, but please get it right, or please don’t do it! They don’t call me eBay masterspy for nothing, so I will spot such transgressions, wherever in the world they are perpetrated, xuout1971.

Mad Items of the Month

Previously I have given my advice to the ladies on sartorial elegance eBay style and on what to do when out doing a spot of “Ruby, don’t take your love to town”. Now, eventually ladies, there will inevitably come a time when you just need to get shut of that boring old CW obsessed nutter you are stuck with. Worry ye not, eBay has all the answers.

Speaking personally, I think the thing I fear most deeply is a bunch of marbles left at the top of the stairs. After all, once the perpetrator has heaved your prone and broken body out of the way and picked them all up, there is no evidence left at all. Ladies, 116thdream has provided you with the opportunity to commit the perfect crime for only £0.99! What a bargain! I hope ‘er Indoors never reads this bit!!!!! 
I have to say however, that the tradition of evil murdering women going way back to Lucretzia Borgia and well beyond is that the weapon of choice is poison, so I can offer you 2 alternatives. You could always use some good old fashioned and traditional ground glass (just think of the pain he will be in). Don’t stint on it, ladies, it may take a fair quantity to remove your little problem from the face of the earth. frostautorestoration has enough to do the job properly. 25Kg for only £19.99. Another absolute bargain. In fact you will probably have enough left over to finish off all his relatives too – you don’t want to share the inheritance, do you?

Perhaps you feel that your man has been a rat (I can understand that, buying yet another piece of CW on the quiet, hiding it in plain sight in a busy display cabinet – hell, I’ve done it myself and I know one or two others who do the same). That obviously calls for a good dose of industrial strength rat poison. Seller swiftbuys234 can solve your problems. Nothing worse of course than your hubby clinging grimly on to his miserable life and frustrating you (despite the obvious and highly satisfying massive internal bleeding), so I recommend that you buy a full 2.5Kg tub of happiness for only £21.95.

Ladies, I am not a greedy man. If my advice has helped you solve your intractable problem, a mere 10% of his estate paid into my account at the Bank of Switzerland, a/c no. 1234567890 would be most deserved and thoroughly welcome. Surely, that is the biggest bargain of all. I think that finishes that series off nicely.

Finally, as you know my blog has been littered with tales of magnificent pieces of CW broken in the post. My thanks go to eBay seller doc_julio, who has sent a really useful guide to packing fragile items to withstand the rigours of our postal system. It will appear on the website shortly.

As ever, I welcome your responses (and this time, your cheques as well).

Good eBaying next month and let’s hope it is as good a month as this one was.

eBay masterspy.

Last month readers I kitted out the good ladies in some spiffing new eBay togs. It would be stupid to waste said kwolity togs, so let’s go out tonight à la eBay! What is the first thing you need when going out on eBay town? Yup, plenty of money. Now, I have told you all of the many calls on my money recently. I am having to make it stretch for ever. Luckily eBay, as ever, provides the perfect solution. What you need is some stretchy money. Seller smuttygifts has stretchy €50 notes. Handy when your 30 thirsty friends are looking for a drink and it is your round. Only £1.99.

At some point on your big night out ladies you are going to say to yourselves “What am I doing shacked up with this loser who is only interested in pottery?” Then…. there he is, across the crowded room – that magical moment is suddenly upon you! Be still your beating hearts. Is he the new man for you? Can trusty eBay help? It sure can. You need a set of male rating cards, another £1.99 gem from smuttygifts. There are ten cards in the pack printed with numbers and slogans thusly…..1. Complete Minger 2. Dream On! 3. I’m drunk – not blind! 4. I’ve had worse! 5. Wouldn’t say no! 6. Tasty! 7. Cute Ass! 8. Total Hunk! 9. Well fit! 10. Hit the jackpot!

And if you decide he is indeed Mr Right, you obviously need to inform him of this fact mucho pronto. This item is…. how to put it in words….. errrrr, direct! smuttygifts has come to your rescue again ladies for only £3.99. This item needs no further words from me.

Right, on with the blog…..

JAZZ STITCH 3655 vase S463

Blog reader tyler*95 from the good ol’ US of A binned a lovely 8” globular vase in JAZZ STITCH 3655. The vase sold for £661.88 – what a bargain! Your truly is lusting again readers, I am afraid.

FAIRY 3576 ginger jar missing cover

tann10 auctioned a FAIRY 3576 ginger jar minus its lid, but despite attracting 13 bids up to £869.00 it didn’t reach its reserve price. Reserve price too high then, wasn’t it?

Floral Comets 3422 covered vase S244

glad-findings found this lidded jar in Floral Comets 3422 and sold it after 12 bids for £111.09. Unfortunately it has suffered a bit of oopsy daisy dropsy. Regrettably it didn’t bounce. Even so, it is a rare colourway and will restore beautifully I am sure.

GARDEN GATE 3863 CONE bon-bon S797

By way of contrast I should include small pieces (especially as Mrs Masterspy likes small pieces), so what about this little trefoil conical dish in GARDEN GATE 3863 sold by well known Aussie seller pixie5144 for £45.48? I like this pattern because it is almost cartoon like in style and yet somehow is also enigmatic. What mysterious story lies beyond the gate, readers?

Berry Cluster 4821 coffee set

I don’t often feature Carlton China in my blogs. Don’t know why. I like it well enough. A very nice 4 person coffee set was eBayed by mackems1 this month in Berry Cluster 4821 with its powder blue ground and gilt interiors. 13 eBayers must have agreed with me because they all made bids on it. A price of £155.00 was eventually paid by the winner. Was it you, reader? Is it as nice in the hand as it is on the screen? Let us know?

Flowering Papyrus 3242 vase

Another part of CW’s vast range that I probably don’t pay enough attention to is HANDCRAFT. Again, I don’t know why not. I really like some HANDCRAFT patterns. One which really struck me as a lovely piece was an unusually shaped 11” vase in Flowering Papyrus 3242. This came to eBay via maisy-patcheye and only made £44.99 due to a hairline crack and some crazing. Stick it on the top shelf buyer and turn the crack to the back! It will look seriously striking.

Zig Zag 3356 chamber stick

While on the subject of handcraft pieces a real CW tour de force came up this month. This was a chamber stick in Zig Zag 3356. The winner is probably quite smug to have had to battle only 4 other bidders for it. Paid a pretty penny for it though – £186.15.

Geometrica 3566 vase S467

I’m on a roll now, readers. Another handcraft piece hove into view from Durban in South Africa. ungaas listed a Geometrica 3566 4¾” vase which unfortunately had 2 tiny rim chips. Despite this it still made £224.96.

TUBELINED TREE 3943 vase S467

Really ringing the changes this month! Next up I want to mention a little 4” vase in TUBELINED TREE 3943. Seller partiques*uk proclaimed it to be in outstanding condition, which probably contributed to a good price of £99.99 being paid by a single bidder. I am a fan of the tubelined patterns and have pieces in this pattern and in TUBELINED FLOWER.

Mad Hatter eggcup from the ALICE range S3398

I was tempted to place this item in mad items of the month, but decided to give the seller the benefit of the doubt. Speculation or a mistake? charityaidtheworldcares2011 binned 4 Mad Hatter egg cups from the 1980’s ALICE range for a price of £7500 each!!! No, I haven’t forgotten to enter a decimal somewhere. The seller claimed they were “extremely rare, highly collectable and sought after”. A few days later the price was changed to £65.00. Another seller, cashquest3 also listed one of these and got no bids at a price of £15.00, so say no more. Make your own minds up.

MONK cruet minus stand S2845

Novelties, I hear you say. Wot abaht novelties? Ok. I liked this cheerful little 3 piece MONK cruet set auctioned by 1annrabbit. It received 7 bids and went for £21.00.

SKIER teapot

Frequently seen on eBay the SKIER teapot is another chirpy little novelty item. Seller miracle0115 asked for one, but only achieved a price of £21.00.

BARGE 2519 chargers

I started my CW collecting with chinoiserie patterns. I still have a soft spot for BARGE 2519 so when sjh9531 listed a pair of 12½” chargers in very good condition I obviously kept my eye on them. They went for a very reasonable £205.00. I predict we will see them again one day on eBay, possibly separately.

BLACKBERRY preserve S1266

Aussie seller debscornucopia tried a preserve pot from the embossed BLACKBERRY range. Unfortunately the lid had a bit of a chip and the pot exhibits the usual crazing, so it only fetched £27.03. Pretty though.

Devils Copse 3817 VELOX bowl

Another sadly damaged piece was a VELOX bowl in the matt turquoise version of Devils Copse 3817 launched by deafeardave. It has a rim chip and some cracks in the base. Heaven knows how much it would have gone for if it had been perfect, as it was it still raised a solid £178.73.

Feathertailed Bird & Flower 3355 vase S463

A piece without any significant damage was a lovely little 4¾” vase in Feathertailed Bird & Flower 3355. Strong colours and a strong pattern in my opinion. Seller cpm1947 might feel slightly let down by you eBayers. A price of £167.00 is not far short of a bargain. Are you happy with it, buyer? I would be.

BEE range honeycombe box

Another seller who probably thinks the price was not right might be Puffett. Normally the BEE range items attract serious interest, but only one bid was placed, so the lucky buyer only paid £40.00. Lucky indeed.

Iceland Poppy 4221 MODERN WARE tray S1571

Also in bargain territory we had a 10” finned dish in Iceland Poppy 4221 which maisy-patcheye stated had no crazing which is unusual for this pattern and colourway. Mysteriously it only made £59.89. I know Iceland Poppy isn’t DEVIL or JAZZ, but come on you lot. That’s cheap.

FAN 3557 powder bowl cover

Mind you, none of the above pieces are as cheap as this one. ungaas also listed a powder bowl in FAN 3557 and it went under everyone’s radar. Well, everyone’s radar except one. The buyer paid an astonishingly cheap £188.64. I have been in touch with the buyer and he is just a little bit pleased. In fact, he is probably still rolling around on the floor laughing, the old thief! To add insult to injury he tells me that it is mint! Don’t worry readers; on your behalf I have told him he is a thief and a lucky thief for good measure.

Rayure 3955 MODERN WARE sugar bowl

monticellomike continues to reduce his collection (in only 2400 years it will all be sold)! Amongst the pieces he sold this month was a little sugar bowl in Rayure 3955. This is a truly stunning deco pattern in masterspy’s opinion. The trouble is, others thought so too. I made the stupid mistake of sitting on my hands thinking it wouldn’t make its reserve. It did, so I don’t own it. Damn it. Worse still readers, monticellomike isn’t planning to sell any more pieces of Rayure. Damn again.

MIKADO 2364 teapot

amheretosell – a no nonsense name if ever I saw one – auctioned a very unusual teapot shape in MIKADO 2364. 10 bidders recognised its rarity and made bids all the way up to £266.00. A high price for MIKADO these days, but how many more of this shaped teapot are you going to see?

Malcolm Gooding Queen Mother sheep

 Now then, I wonder if my readers Sally and Janette were the lucky buyers of any of the Malcolm Gooding Sheep which were auctioned by damiin this month. Were you, ladies? Do let us know if you were successful. If not….. Baaaaaah (sorry, couldn’t help myself). The one which sold for the highest price was the Queen Mother sheep.  It made £70.00 which is high for one of these.

(Apologies to the seller damiin  with the error we made about saying the Queen Mum was wrongly categorised.  Identifying some of the Gooding models is confusing).  To see click here

Well, that’s me done for another month. I hope you have enjoyed reading it. Our webmaster is getting it sent to him earlier than usual this month, because I have a wedding to plan and a Father of the Bride speech to write. OMG. Despite these onerous duties I will answer all queries and comments in the usual way, so feel free to send them entirely as normal.
Best wishes,
eBay masterspy

Gawd, But It’s Parky, Dark, Foggy and Dank. Stick Another Log On’t Fire, Will Yer?

“The day is ending,
The night is descending;
The marsh is frozen,
The river dead.
Through clouds like ashes
The red sun flashes
On village windows
That glimmer red.”
-  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Afternoon in February

We all need cheering up at this time of year, don’t we? Well that miserable poem won’t do it, will it readers? Thanks for nothing, Longfellow. Good job you have got me to do the job properly for you, isn’t it? So, without further ado, let’s get straight into the good stuff….

Spangled Tree 4163 charger

I am going to start with a pattern I don’t recall mentioning in my blog before. A 13” charger in Spangled Tree 4163 was frisbee’d onto eBay by call94. A hard fought conflict ensued and when the smoke cleared a lucky eBayer had managed to secure the booty for the sum of £383.33. Was it you? Has it warmed the cockles of your heart on a dreary winter’s night? Let us know.

DAISY 3673 charger

Another 13” charger was auctioned by glad-findings. This one was in the blue colourway in DAISY 3673. Again hard fought over, this one rose to a price of £387.77. Which one do you prefer, readers? Let us know. 

Jazz Stitch 3655 VELOX bowl

Speaking of things turning up together… Two VELOX bowls wormed their way out of the woodwork this month. Joncrm lobbed a Jazz Stitch 3655 VELOX our way, which fetched “only” £431.00. I say “only” in the full knowledge that £431.00 is a goodly amount of dough, but not for a piece of CW like this. If you bought it, is it worth it? Is all ok?

FAN 3558 VELOX bowl

In the last knockings of the month dunnhoardin40 (another great eBay id, I love it) got his act together to sell a VELOX in the highly sought after FAN 3558 pattern. The air is rarefied up there in the CW stratosphere but 10 bidders felt their urges stirring and thrust and parried until the price of £870.00 drew the lifeblood from all but one triumphant bidder. Are you happy with it, buyer? Tell us.

Another twosome worth mentioning is the chamberstick and candlestick which lit our way through the aforementioned dark. Firstly gemsantiques put up a chamberstick in Nightingale 3598 which chirped its way to £156.33, and then the fruity seller banana-dance intrigued us with the rarely seen Geometrica 3566. This one went to £145.00. 

Nightingale 3598 chamberstick & Geometrica 3566

Cubist Butterfly 3195 vase s326 & Sunflower Geometric 3334 vase

Vying for the title of colourful small vase of the month are these 2 pieces. monticellomike (or perhaps Mrs monticellomike) decided he could do without a lovely 326 shape 6”er in Cubist Butterfly 3195 on the orange ground. Why, Mrs M? It’s a beauty. Despite having a hairline it reached £183.00 and no wonder.  What could match this? Well, diddybox didn’t want a 6”er in Sunflower Geometric 3334 either! What? Inexplicable, isn’t it readers. Personally, I would steal a blind man’s cane and kill both my grannies for one of these. Only 4 bids on it, but no messin’ about, it realised £275.00. I think both the buyers got a good deal.

Peach Melba 3448 REVO dish

I like a good REVO, don’t you readers? A nice example came up on eBay this month when seller heirloom-investments snuck up on my sweet tooth with a 10”er in Peach Melba 3448. There must be others who enjoy a nice Peach Melba, because this one was bid up to £148.15.

DEVIL 3765 ginger jar detail

I suppose I can’t ignore any longer the ginger jar in DEVIL 3765 on the turquoise ground listed by tann10. Even though it had no lid and is only 5½” high it soared to a massive £1460.00. I hope it was worth it. That’s a lot of money. Are you happy with your purchase, buyer?

Mentioning the Spangled Tree charger has made me think about stuff I don’t often tell you about, either because it is rare and therefore rarely seen on eBay, or because it doesn’t hit my afterburner button. Well, just because it may not be my cup of tea, doesn’t mean that there aren’t folks reading this who would like to have some balance shoehorned into my monthly blog. 

INCISED DAISY 3900 diamond tray & INCISED DAISY 3901 vase S1325

INCISED DAISY 3900 isn’t one of my personal favourites, but is a simple, bold and affordable pattern which can be found in good shapes such as this diamond fin handled tray which was bought for only £19.00 – a bargain, surely. Then, before I barely had time to stir my tea, another piece this time in the version on the pale blue ground was auctioned in the offset handled vase by solarleisure. A very similar bargain price £16.00 was paid for this one.

Will-o-the-wisp 3939 jug S1411

Another unusual pattern is Will-o-the-wisp 3939. A ewer was offered by thewalkergardeners in the equally unusual (and some might say un – CW like) shape 1411. I like it, but it only made £34.51. I mean, come on. The buyer ought to be ashamed of him or herself. This was a steal.

Floral Scallops 3234 HANDCRAFT vase

A nice 8” vase in Floral Scallops 3234 (haven’t mentioned this one before, either) was auctioned by davebren and sold for a very reasonable £79.77. I like this pattern. It must be my love of symmetry I suppose. The seller describes it as stunning. It looks it. Does the reality match the hyperbole? Let us know.

I have kept no secret whilst writing my blog, that I love the Moderne Ware, or as Harvey more correctly calls it, MODERN WARE. Maybe I have a touch of the Hyacinth Bucket, who knows, but I prefer it with the “e”. I have some myself, so I have put my money where my mouth is. A set in the rare coffee and cream colourway was auctioned by niainiai. Unfortunately a couple of pieces were damaged.

MODERN WARE coffee set with banded matt glaze decoration

Only one bid was made and the set sold for the opening price of £100.00. What are you doing out there? Don’t you recognise true class when it is poked under your noses? I bet this buyer is still dancing round his PC and doing the pumping arm thing. Are you, buyer?

PENDANT BUBBLES 2845 coffee can & saucer - Entangled Droplets 3555 MELON coffee cup & saucer

Seller vanilla_pods came to market with 2 rare patterns this month. First up was a cup and saucer in PENDANT BUBBLES 2845. This one made £59.99 which isn’t a lot of money by some standards in CW cups and saucers. As if this wasn’t enough the same seller popped up with another rare cup and saucer in Entangled Droplets 3555 which went for £95.00.

Time for a chuckle with the mad eBay items of the month.

This month eBay masterspy is going to use his experience and fashion sense to kit out you ladies as only eBay can (but have no fear, I am going to steer well clear of the Solomons – Editor – he means Solomon Grundy’s = Undies). What do you think about buying a nice pair of designer glasses from eBay, ladies? Why would you pay exorbitant high street prices when you can buy a pair of beauties like these for only £4.41 on eBay? You will look seriously stylish and fashionable wearing these. In fact, why not get a few pairs and save money on shipping?

They make such a “statement” you will obviously need to raise the kwolity of the rest of your attire now to meet the standard you have just set for yourself. What you need is a fine pair of leggings. How can you pass up a bargain of this magnitude at such a stunningly cheap price as £19.99? Surely you want to buy a couple of spare pairs of these too, no doubt in my mind.


I haven’t been married for 37 years for nothing, you know. I have spent half a lifetime going round the shops with Mrs Masterspy (and the 2 Misses Masterspy for that matter). I know my fashion related stuff. You ladies need a top as well now, don’t you? Well, it is obvious you need this little beauty. Yet another steal at only £22.99. Cheap as chips. I am going to buy Mrs Masterspy half a dozen of these. Can’t have enough of a good thing is what I say!

A lady can’t go out of the house without a new pair of shoes, now can she? I want to make sure that you ladies don’t have to wear some stupid ankle-ripping high heel shoes guaranteed to result in an operation to have 2 nice big bunions removed later in life, so here we are. A really good cheap but stylish solution to go perfectly with my other selections and available for only £5.99 from good old eBay. Another masterspy bargain!

Perhaps you feel a bit cold, readers, after all winter isn’t quite over yet. What you need is a nice colourful hoodie coat to finish off your outfit. I found this “Page 3 Stunna” to fit in with your new outfit at only £49.99. Don’t worry ladies, of course they have a handbag to match this super coat for only £3.99.

How could you pass up the opportunity to sport such duds at Ascot, or at a Buck House garden party? An entire outfit, top to toe for the truly amazing price of only £107.36. I don’t know how I do it, I really don’t! I would like to hear from you CW wives, girlfriends and, of course, lady collectors. Tell me I know the fashion world better than Gok Wan. You would be delighted to wear the kit I have recommended – wouldn’t you??? Should any reader feel the need of further sartorial advice, please feel free to contact me. I will be delighted to help.

Well regrettably, that’s all for this month folks. As ever, feel free to leave any response you might have in the normal bloggy way.

All the best.

eBay masterspy (aka Gok Wan’s older and more talented brother)

Well, what a month! No dosh, eBay bidding famine continues seemingly without end…. Sadly, once again this month I failed to win the Euromi££ions. I am going to phone up and complain if I don’t win next week. It must be my turn by now, because according to the blurb they have created more lottery millionaires than the entire population of China. Work?… Horrendous, say no more. My footie team are playing like a bunch of one-legged strangers after 15 pints the night before, so say no more about that either.

Mrs Masterspy is keeping the pressure on re the new 3 piece suite, despite me fighting a valiant and heroic rearguard action of Rourke’s Drift proportions. The old suite seems perfectly fine to me, readers – it’s almost new guv’nor, so it is, on the life of my 15 snotty kids. Your very own eBay Masterspy is being slowly dragged ever closer to the door of uber-expensive massive furnishing emporium, Arighi Bianchi for yet another unnecessary house-related purchase. And if the above is not sufficient to make you reach for the Kleenex, both the fruits of my loins have been in hospital at various stages of the month (not to mention my only remaining aged auntie). Panic ye not, dear readers, all appears well now on the children’s health front at least (the auntie is a bit more long term, sadly)….. Inevitably I have lost a bit more of what remains of my hair, though (and I can’t afford to lose any more, believe me). To top it off, it is now, at long last, “proppoh piggin keld innit” as we say in the North.

Ed. Translated from the vernacular common in some poorer (and sadly benighted) parts of Northern England, such as Leeds…. “I say gentlemen, it is desperately cold this fine morning, is it not?” and this is usually replied to in the following fashion “By God and by the Queen’s beard sir, so it is!”

Ok, enough of my travails…..

I thought I would do things upside down this month as I have had an upside down time myself, so here goes with the first of this year’s….

Mad Items of the Month!

Well, first a return to an old favourite (eBay Masterspy never sleeps and never misses anything, please remember this fact, shill bidders). Remember the “Reproduction 17^th Century Style Garrotte Stool” which was for sale back in the summer for £1900? It was surprisingly unsold (hang on a moment while I drag my tongue forcibly back out of my cheek), but undaunted however, the seller kept relisting it (there’s nowt like a spot of perseverance is there, dear reader?). It was withdrawn during its current run this month as “Item no longer available”. I think we can safely translate this as sold “off ebay”. The price, well, of course I can’t say, but the starting price had been reduced to £900, so I think it may be assumed to be somewhere below this. Go on, admit it, if you had been still watching it readers, you would have happily parted with £800+ for this historic (not) artefact, had you but known that it was going to be reduced to such a reasonable value for money price. Gutted, aren’t you, readers? If only we hadn’t had a new kitchen I could have gone for this one. Damn.

Guitars, I hear you ask? Love ‘em, listening to one moanin’ an’ wailin’ away as I type, in fact. Can I play ‘em?.. Regrettably not (that’s another mega-lucrative alternative career passed me by, not to mention the sad lack of large packs of gorgeous groupies and associated stacks of good strong whacky baccy in eBay Masterspy’s life this past 40 years L). Now, I have heard of 4 string guitars, 6 string guitars and even 12 string guitars (How many fingers do you need??? How many you got???). Anyway, seller skicom unluckily(?) failed to attract any bids for the 7 (yeah man, wow, like seven strings, man) stringer he put on ebay for a mere £630.59. Wonder why.

Finally this month 1aelphick auctioned one of the past CW club badges. Why is that a mad item I hear you ask, incredulity etched in your voice? Somebody paid a completely OTT £9.40 for it, that’s why. Mind you, it does seem to come complete with 3 wrinkly fingers (see picture).

The Serious Stuff

It seems to have been Baluster Vase Month this month, readers. Back at the beginning of the month seller gemmatobutt (you know me and the id names thing, does this mean Gemma has a tomato-shaped and coloured butt? I do hope not, Gemma) eBayed a lovely pair of blue 10¾” TEMPLE 2929 balusters. To my considerable surprise they received only one bid and so went for the starting price of £100.00. Now, that’s what I call a bargain. Well done there, buyer. You sneaked in there like a thief in the night.  

MIKADO 2929 baluster vases

Another pair of similarly sized balusters in dark blue PERSIAN 2882 was sold by potteryvillage-dot after a more normal 24 bid battle for £229.00. Still pretty good value for money I think in this pattern.

PERSIAN 2882 baluster vases.

There were also 2 separate baluster vases in FLIES/NEW FLIES. First up was myngswyk (what’s up, had an “unfortunate experience” with vowels and not too keen on ‘em anymore?) who listed a NEW FLIES 11″ baluster in light blue as a BIN/ONO. It was bought for £265.00, roughly 10% less than the initial asking price had been. Just had a thought readers, perhaps I should run a competition in the blog. All you have to do is email in a proper word in the English language using only the letters in myngswyk plus any additional vowels you wish. 

NEW FLIES baluster vase

On the other hand especiallyceramics auctioned an 11″ FLIES 2732 baluster in an unusual pink lustre. Would bidders warm to this hot pink vase? Errrrrr, no. 7 bidders did make 12 bids, but they topped out at £67.89. No doubt this was a disappointing result for the seller. Was it disappointing, seller? Got yourself a bargain, buyer? Let me know. Virtually £200 difference.

FLIES 2732 baluster vase

By way of complete contrast to baluster vases, happy.snapper (a photographer perhaps, or maybe more worryingly, someone who likes biting customers – I hope not) auctioned a Ringmaster bell which stood to attention for £110.00. I love these table bells, but unfortunately I only have one of the set. Anybody out there got the whole set? Send the website a picture. I am sure Harvey would publish it.

Ringmaster bell

 Stop Press News… da dit dit da da dit dit….

OMG. The white flag is hanging dejectedly and limply over Rourke’s Drift. We have bought the dreaded 3 piece suite! Mind you, Mrs Masterspy negotiated the price down at the last minute by a startling £600 i.e. below the January sale price – she’s vicious. You should have seen her little jet black gimlet eyes boring deep deep deep into the poor salesman’s soul. It was a deeply frightening and unsettling experience. I don’t want to worry you, sellers, but I intend to let her loose on you in future to do all my CW negotiating. Be afraid, be very, very afraid. In fact it might be safer just to switch to selling dodgy motors or fake CDs or something she isn’t interested in while you still can. Note to self….. Don’t get divorced. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.

Stop Press News 2… da dit dit da da dit dit….

OMG. Aaaghhh. Back to financial Armageddon. My youngest daughter has just announced her intention to get married this spring. Guess what, she told us about 30 minutes after we had ordered the aforementioned 3 piece. The flying fickle finger of fate strikes again and kicks me right in the wallet. Nearly had a coronary let me tell you. I’m going to be down to buying boxes of matches rather than CW on eBay shortly. Hey ho. Sigh. Better have a word with my bank manager.

With a heavy heart, or is it a leaping heart (make up your own minds and when you have, tell me, ‘cos I can’t work it out) back to the CW. I liked the 10″ cylinder vase in TEMPLE 3026 in ivory and teal green frieze auctioned by naughtynouveau. If you are into chinoiserie, I reckon this one ticks most of the boxes and so did 6 ebayers, who bid this one up to a still reasonable £108.99. The ivory and teal green really go well together, don’t they? Did you buy it? Is it as stunning an example of chinoiserie as it looks on screen?

TEMPLE 3026 vase

One of the surprises of the month for me was a coffee set for 6 (minus cream jug) in MIKADO 2881 sold by (a no doubt extremely delighted) quantockman, which was fought over back and forth by 2 bidders, only for a third bidder to jump in and highjack the spoils with a huge bid of £440.75. Bet they were both gutted, don’t you?

MIKADO 2881 AMORY coffee set

 The chinoiserie pattern which currently sells for the highest prices is CHINALAND. In this case a 10″ trumpet-shaped vase in the orange ground pattern number 2948 was put up for sale by dealsanmore. 6 bidders share my liking for this pattern and went as far as £678.36.

CHINALAND 2948 trumpet vase

Does a spot of HANDCRAFT float your boat? Well, I was taken by the VELOX bowl in NEW DELPHINIUM 3526 Buy-it-Nowed by wallsco2 for £165.00. Now this seller can often price way too high in my experience, but this item was priced reasonably in my opinion.

NEW DELPHINIUM 3526 VELOX bowl

Another nice HANDCRAFT piece was the lovely CLEMATIS 3525 7½” jug vase put up by sportsman14a and snapped up for £112.01. Striking or what?

CLEMATIS 3525 HANDCRAFT jug vase

How about a bit of Floral Embossed? So hows about an item I rarely see or mention, wall pockets? Seller mrpp355 auctioned a pair of 6½” wall pockets in HYDRANGEA. This is possibly the prettiest embossed pattern to my eye and in this case was bid to £73.00.

HYDRANGEA Floral embossed wall pockets

Good value those wall pockets if you can’t afford the next item. Mind you, it turns out that nobody could, because the reserve was not reached when trampuss tried but failed to sell his JAZZ 3353 7″ jug vase. The price rose to a nose-bleedingly dizzying £1650.00, but not nose-bleedingly high enough for trampuss obviously.

JAZZ 3353 jug vase

oscarpops is nothing if not devilish cunning, dear readers. She had a pair of Parkland 3524 8″ vases in shape 457. She sold them both separately to finish 2 minutes apart. The first one to finish realised £547.00 and having whetted the appetites of ebayers the world over, the second one easily topped that, reaching £627.00. Lovely vases, these. Lucky lucky buyers.

Parkland 3524 vase S457

Not content with these 2 triumphs oscarpops also listed a 9″ vase in TURKISH 3050. Again, a lovely vase, in a shouldered tapering form. 10 bidders thought this was worth a punt and it reached a pretty high £411.00. I really liked it. I have a couple of pieces of TURKISH, but this one is exceptional.

TURKISH 3050 vase

Two striking pieces auctioned at Fielding’s in Stourbridge this month found their way straight onto eBay. First up was akmrjb, who offered his recent capture a 14″ tall jug in Hedgerow 3862 which (although restored on the rim) managed to reach £176.99.

Hedgerow 3862 jug

This was followed by baggin_time who heaved his massive 18″ lidless temple jar in TEMPLE 2880 into our view. This was Buy-it-Nowed for £480.00, but hasn’t found a buyer. Expensive for me at this price, readers, what do you think?

TEMPLE 2880 temple jar minus cover

Now the last thing I want to do, readers is finish without mentioning the fabulous 6″ Floral Comets 3387 vase in shape 467 sold by antdeco. Despite having a hairline it was bid on by 10 ebayers and reached £341.25. A nice little piece to finish on.

Comets 3387 vase S467

As ever, I welcome your comments on my blog. Please post any comments you have using the form provided. Here’s to next month (and another month when I will unfortunately be out of the game. Damn!). I might still be able to post another blog next month though, assuming the leccy company haven’t cut off my power supply and I can still fire up my little ‘puter (but the room will probably have to be by candle light I reckon).

Good luck in February,

eBay Masterspy

Rant 1……..
I mentioned in my review of November that my friend was attempting to do a Warren Buffet on Tendrillon 3858 pieces and corner the world market. I didn’t mention that he bought a beautiful (and perfect) jug vase, because it arrived in rather more pieces than he would have wished it to and understandably he asked me not to mention it in my December review, as he was in the process of trying to get his hard earned back from the seller. I just don’t understand why people underestimate the rigours of the postal system, but they repeatedly do. Put enough packing material in a big and strong enough box, will you!

Tendrillon jug vase

Rant 2……..
I tell you what really gets up my nostrils. When you click to enlarge the listing picture and the enlarged image is exactly the same size as the original picture. Grrrrrrrr. Come on sellers, do it properly, there are some of us out there who want to look at bigger images before we bid, which, if I am not mistaken, makes it in your interest to provide them.

Rant 3……..
Private listing auctions. My all time pet eBay hate. I know I speak for a large number of friends and collectors of CW who hate secret auctions. Part of the fun in auctions (both in the flesh in an auction room as well as on eBay) is in seeing the different bidders coming in and out and back in again etc, but more importantly there is always that nagging feeling of wondering if the seller is shill bidding on his own items. I know of a few sellers who do this and I, for one, either don’t bid at all on their auctions, or I only bid a proportion of what I would have bid if the auction was an open one. I personally don’t believe you always get your full price therefore, sellers, with private listing auctions. One of eBay’s reasons for allowing Private Listing auctions is that they say they don’t want members being hassled by unsolicited emails. In many years buying on eBay this has never ever happened to me yet and I bet it has never happened to most of you out there either, has it buyers?
Aaahhhh, I feel so much better now, so on to the story of December.

Where to start, hmmmm. What about the lovely 7” jug vase in GARDEN 3413 sold by nicholnack, the well known Australian seller and webmaster of the extremely useful website www.nicholnack.com.au? A curvaceous and colourful addition to somebody’s collection, even at the more than curvaceous and colourful price of £260.57. One thing which makes this jug a nice piece for me is the strongly coloured blue rim in something other than the normal CW gilding. Nice one, Bruce.

Jug Vase in GARDEN 3413

Not one of my normal favourite patterns (because most pieces seem to pick up more than an average amount of wear); a floating flower  bowl in Moonlight Cameo 2946 was sold by magicjayne after 14 bids for a very reasonable £139.00. Not much wear on this one, so I think the buyer got a bargain here.

Moonlight Cameo 2946 floating flower bowl

And then….. blow me down gently, along came another Moonlight Cameo piece, this time in the 2960 variant; a quality 7” lidded ginger jar auctioned by potteryvillage-dot. It fetched a tidy £310.00.

Moonlight Cameo 2960 ginger jar

Talking of lidded ginger jars, I simply cannot ignore the massive 13½” TUT 2711 “Page 3 Stunna”, put up by seller kidcarltonware, from the Stoke area. Sorry, overseas readers, I should explain that a “Page 3 Stunna” is a full page photograph of a young lady wearing only a smile on Page 3 of the UK  newspaper, The Sun. You can safely say the eBay Masterspy gob was thoroughly smacked (by the ginger jar, not the Page 3 Stunna, I mean). The auction ran its course, but attracted no bids. Perhaps in this day and age £2500.00 as a starting price was too high, even for a piece of this outstanding calibre…….. Or perhaps it was sold afterwards??? C’mon kidcarltonware, did you sell it later, or will we be seeing it again on ebay one day?

TUT 2711 ginger jar

In my first annual review (accessed from the home page and by following the link to latest news and then scrolling down) I briefly mentioned the set of 6 novelty napkin rings auctioned by daisy-jack who is normally mainly a seller of Clarice Cliff, but ventured into our territory with the DEVIL dressing table set recently. It is pretty unusual to see a collection of these sold together and it attracted some heavy duty bids, finishing up at a chin-wiping £285.00!

Coloured Ware Napkin rings

Shock horror!!!! Wot the ‘eck’s goin’ on??? Masterspy has turned a bit funny. ‘e’s havin’ one o’ them weird turns. The massive pressure of his monumental task has finally flipped him over the edge of the mental abyss!!! This item isn’t made of clay!!! Even worse, it is made from (shudder) trees!!! Seller syl1010amber offered up a bunch of paper and CW aficionados bid on it, shock horror!!! In this case it was a complete set of 30 Carlton Times (oh, that’s all right then, I’ll let you off Masterspy, just this once – Harvey). 5 bids were made and it made £56.00, which, even in my crazed state, seems a steal.

Issues of the Carlton Times published by CWCI before 2000.

Perhaps if I listen to a smooooooth bit of JAZZ 3353 I might calm down enough to continue. A kwolity little vase was sold by one of eBay’s top CW sellers, mackems1. It wasn’t in perfect condition, but certainly reasonable and so was the price, a stonking £520.00.

JAZZ 3353 vase

As regular readers will know I (like all of you, no doubt) have my favourite patterns and my favourite shapes and I love it when both are combined in a single magically altered pile of clay. Another such pattern is Cubist Butterfly 3190 and the shape 406. alldecokid placed a 6” job on ebay which went for a useful £186.56 after 10 bids. The problem with this pattern is it is another one which is more often than not pretty worn. In this case it was crazed (as usual) but good otherwise.

Cubist Butterfly 3190 vase S406

Simply put readers, catstealer went totally bonkers this month. He chucked at us cups and saucers that made near on £300.00, jugs, bowls and ribbed dogs in an orgy of posh pot selling. Amongst this flurry of delight the 2 items I want to make special mention of this month were a Secretary Bird 4018 dish and a very rare Rainbow Portal 3497 large vase. Both fetched £450.00.

Secretary Bird 4018 tray & Rainbow Portal 3497 spill vase.

Do you like a fair few kilos of CW for your money, readers??? Perhaps pg123 had what you needed. A pair (yes, a pair) of massive, fat-as-a-money-lender 19” tall (yes, 19” tall) lidded temple jars in MIKADO 4433. They attracted 20 bids, presumably from massive fat collectors (oops, sorry) and made £436.90. You wouldn’t want one of those falling on your toe bone, would you, readers?? Wouldn’t want to pay the postage either, I’ll warrant.

MIKADO 4433 temple jars.

markyeva1968 did a spanking good piece of business with a 6” vase shape 443 in Devils Copse 3817 on the turquoise ground. Plenty of you liked it as much as I did and 10 of you tried to buy it. The winner had to pay £631.00 for the privilege of ownership. Did you buy it? Was it worth the money?

Devils Copse 3187 vase S443.

The same seller also listed a tray made originally for a dressing table set in Rosetta aka Magical Tree 3505. Either way I love this pattern. This piece had a few flakes of orange enamel missing from one of the flowers, but it still went for a creditable £131.00. Those of us who have any pieces of BARGE 2519 for example, will know that CW’s orange raised enamel can be prone to becoming detached from the pot (especially when thickly applied in narrow strips on the temple roof – I have an otherwise perfect 13” baluster vase in my collection with a smidgen of orange missing, so I speak from experience). Any pieces with this colour should be handled, dusted or cleaned with great care because of this (its ok readers, I don’t charge extra for my advice).

Rosetta 3505 dressing table tray

Finally (sigh, shudder), things have got pretty desperate in the masterspy house, what with Christmas, children buying first houses and new (and I might point out completely unnecessary) kitchens. Regrettably, I am now down to my last 50,000 in cash – unfortunately in Vietnamese Dong (donations welcome, of course, but not in Vietnamese Dong) and when the ebay bidding withdrawal shakes got too bad I had to resort to phoning a pal and asking him if he wanted me to collect his eBay auction winnings from the seller rysma007 whose house I was passing on business (ok, so it was a bit of a detour) and to deliver it to him next time I am near his house, with the sole purpose of being able to display something I don’t own in my cabinet for a couple of weeks. As deeply sad a tale of addiction as you are ever likely to hear. I would quite understand, readers if you feel the overwhelming need of a fresh clean white hanky and a good blow of your nose. They say confession is good for the soul. No it isn’t……. and I have to deliver it on Monday. Damn it. Mind you, I have really enjoyed having a wonderful (and possibly close to unique) Chevrons 3657 complete coffee set in my cabinet, even if it was only for a short time. It cost my friend £377.77 (cheap as chips as David Dickinson would say). If I had bought it though, I might have been getting a less than pleasant visit from the local bailiffs!

Chevrons 3657 MELON coffee set.

As usual, I am very keen on your feedback, views and comments, so feel free to post a comment on the blog at any time. Here’s to another year’s eBaying, readers.
Best wishes,
eBay Masterspy

This seems to have been the month of the cruet. Quite few of them came up on eBay in November and for the most part made good to high prices. Early doors for example pomodori3 auctioned a nice fruit embossed BLACKBERRY cruet. It attracted the interest of 7 bidders and finished up at £156.87.

Fruit Embossed BLACKBERRY cruet

The following day salhood put up a floral embossed ANEMONE cruet. This was also highly sought after and received 14 bids (unusually, each bidder bid only once). It topped out at £182.00. Interestingly, it was “more than similar” to one auctioned in October which made £177.00 for mackems1.

Floral Embossed ANEMONE cruet

A week later damiin offered a colourful and unusual Farmyard cruet.  Even more bids, 21 in fact, were placed on this one and the price reached a remarkable £245.00, certainly not a price to be sneezed at. Pass the pepper, mother.

Farmyard cruet

A pattern becoming more and more popular is ORBIT. Seller uk-ceramics listed a cruet in this pattern, which in this case rose to £51.00 after 4 bids.

ORBIT cruet

Finally, at the end of the month, saintglenn shook some final condiments into the mix, this time with a POPPY cruet. One bidder proved more mustard than the rest and it went up to £47.97.

Floral Embossed POPPY cruet

Ok, having done the cruets to death it is time to look elsewhere. Fans of nice shaped pots may have noted the 10½” tall ultra elegant PERSIAN 2884 vase which welshdragon-antiques introduced. It only got a singleton bid of £174.99, but that was enough for pack it and wrap it time.

PERSIAN 2884 vase Shape 164

I had a little tickle on the 4½” conical trefoil bonbon dish in the pale blue version of SKETCHING BIRD 3907, but I failed miserably. It really took off and made very good money at a finishing price of £170.00. Seller borderben49 must have been delighted.

SKETCHING BIRD 3907 conical bon-bon

Melange 3601 is quite rightly a highly valued pattern amongst collectors of deco CW and pre82 will trouser a chunky £370.00 for his striking 7½” vase.

Melange 3601 vase Shape 456

Regular readers of this blog will know that I love Babylon 4125 and the triangular Modern Ware tray shape 1601, so to have both combined in one pot is tops for me. charliesgal offered it and the price ended up at £330.00. Did you buy it? Is it as good as it looks?

Babylon 4125 MODERN WARE tray Shape 1601

Another Modern Ware shape appeared in the guise of a TUBLINED WIRE NETTING 3975 (Yes that’s what it was called in pattern records, Harvey confirms) 6½” jug auctioned by decoskin. A fairly rare pattern, so unsurprisingly there were 21 bids and a nice final price of £184.01.

TUBLINED WIRE NETTING 3975 MODERN WARE jug Shape 1437

MODERN WARE coffee sets are another favourite of mine and often badly undervalued as I have said before. This time the set was a green and gilded one and did very well price wise, going up to £246.00 for seller baby.dragon.

MODERN WARE coffee set

Now if one happens to want a few hen’s teeth I am sure you have got more chance of finding them than finding another Carlton China advertising plaque the same as this one. The seller was partiques*uk. I don’t know whether he was happy with how much he will receive from the sale, but having spoken to the delighted buyer I can assure you all that he was well chuffed to secure it for £144.99 after quelling the challenge from 3 competitors.

Carlton China advertising plaque

Speaking of hen’s teeth there can’t be too many twin handled footed dishes around in Scimitar 3651. US seller roskilly had one. As readers will remember I mentioned it last month as I felt it was listed with too high a starting price considering its condition. It was first offered at £1200.00, then again at £1050.00 before finally finding a bidder at £580.00.

Carlton Ware Scimitar 3651 FOOTED FRUIT Shape 184

Another pot which was “more than similar” to one mentioned last month is an Iceland Poppy 4193 12″ bowl in pale green gloss offered by oscarpops and snapped up after 5 bids for £91.00. Did you buy this very unuaual shaped bowl , dear reader? Did you make a horrible mistake? Was it your best buy ever? Let us know.

Iceland Poppy 4193 bowl

And then there was the one which got away. We will probably never see this one on eBay again. Did you all see the 8″ lidded ginger jar in DEVIL 3767. No? I am not surprised. Only obsessive compulsives like me are on eBay for so long that pots which appear and are withdrawn as “no longer available” in double time lickety split are spotted while briefly there. More in hope than any real expectation…… Did you shell out £4000.00 for this beauty? Fancy telling us if it was worth it, anonymously if you feel the need?

DEVIL 3767 ginger jar

There is an eBayer out there (a good friend of mine) who is trying to do a Warren Buffett and corner the world market in Tendrillon 3858 pieces. This month he has bought 2 more pieces and very nearly bagged a third. One of these is a lovely 10″ REVO dish which was auctioned by call94. It realised £210.69 for the seller and I am (definitely not) authorised to say that both father and REVO are both doing well.

Tendrillon 3858 REVO tray

A rather dramatic gondola in Dragon & Traveller 3594 in terracotta, said to be 18” in length was auctioned by Canadian seller mulgaking and raised £274.67 after 8 bids. Although there is a little crazing etc on the piece, if it really is 18″ long it must be another hen’s teeth job. Anybody else out there got a gondola that large? Let us know if you have. I was chatting to another collector who said the figure depicted on the gondola didn’t look like he was going to do much more travelling as he was about to be barbecued! He certainly doesn’t look too happy to see the dragon (I felt a bit similar when ‘er Indoors found out about my last purchase).

Dragon & Traveller 3594 gondola

Lastly, another rare survivor I would think considering the fragility of the shape was auctioned by charliesgal. The 8th bid of £250.00 secured this superb 10″ MERIDIAN FRUIT dish in GUM FLOWER 3790.

GUM FLOWER 3790 MERIDIAN FRUIT

Mad Items of the Month

Now I have already admitted to being obsessive compulsive above and those who know me might even add manic depressive for good measure on a bad day, but I am nowhere near close to being sad enough to purchase these 2 cheery beauties from eBay.
speedyhenuk is offering a nice bedtime reading book for you all, it is entitled “I Hate Myself and Want to Die: The 52 Most Depressing Songs You’ve Ever Heard.” Great value for money eBayers, you get 224 pages of suicidal misery for your £9.95. Even better, there are still 3 available (wonder why) so there’s no need to rush. Go on, buy it and cuddle up on you own under the duvet and read all night until the cold light of dawn or the bottle full of Paracetamol make their appearance.

I really hope my children read this one…. I was momentarily tempted by the idea of a nice new tee shirt, but then I browsed around on ebay and found this one listed by designahshirt10. Far too close to the truth for comfort. I can almost feel the breeze from all those heads out there nodding in bitter agreement. It soon put me off buying a new tee shirt, I can tell you.

Fakes Alert

Finally, as we approach Christmas once again the rash of fake CW reaches its annual zenith. Here are three examples offered recently, or still running on eBay. Don’t get taken in or your Christmas might not be quite as happy as you hoped.

Fakes

A Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all. I will be back early in the New Year with December’s round up and an annual review. In the meantime the Masterspy never sleeps, so if you want to send a comment it will be welcomed and answered as always.

All the best,
eBay Masterspy

There’s an ol’ part of downtown Manchester called Moss Side.  It’s a rootin’ tootin’ one hoss burg just the other side of Tombstone, Arizona. It is said that even the No. 53 stagecoaches drive through the area in convoy for safety.

It is a mighty long time since a piece of Needlepoint 3815 appeared on eBay until last month when a nice REVO dish appeared (see my last article). So guess what, feller? There is STILL safety in numbers in the Wild West of Moss Side. On the mean streets of eBayville, U.S of A, ANOTHER ONE appeared in October! This one had appletown11 from the equally tough city of Glasgow, Scotland, riding point to protect it from the Injuns. Once Upon a Time in the West 12 gunslingers rode into town and at High Noon all loosed off 34 slugs at the target and the last man standing in the OK Corral had to shell out £206.87 for a Few Dollars More. I can’t believe the buyer got such a Bonanza! Readers, at this point you will just have to imagine the sound of eBay Masterspy lazily and with utter disdain pinging a lump of soggy chawin’ baccy into the Lucky Carlton Saloon spittoon. (Nice one, lovely image that, Masterspy).

Needlepoint 3815 REVO tray

Early in the month a magnificent dressing table set of DEVIL 3765 (which is the version on the turquoise ground) was sold at Fieldings Auction House. A UK seller daisy-jack bought it and sold the parts separately on eBay (a great shame as far as I am concerned). One of the candlesticks and one of the trinket boxes sold for £1250.00 each. Having attended the Carlton Ware World Get-together in Stoke last month I have clapped my eyes on this set and it is utterly magnificent (only 5 numbers and 2 stars stopped me bidding for it, readers, hey ho).

DEVIL 3765 trinket box & candlestick

What next, I hear you say, readers? What could possibly follow that? Well the emphatic answer was a Scimitar 3652 8½ inch (215 mm) bowl, that’s what. Another deadly gunfight ensued (OK, stop it now, enough of the cowboy stuff – says webmaster Harvey) and 30 bids later the winner had to pay £703.67 for it. What a beauty!

Scimitar 3652 bowl - 8½" diameter

Fans of Embossed Ware needn’t feel outdone by this burst of high end art deco eBaying either. A well known seller called elimayboo (Whoah there! Down boys! Steady now!) sold a WATERLILY tea for two set for an eye watering £525.00 BIN. I bet the Clampetts are well pleased with that one and all went for a swim in their cee-ment pond to celebrate (Look, I told you to cut it out with the cowboy stuff already).

WATERLILY morning set in yellow

Whilst the eyes are still watering, seller mchiro listed a cigarette or card holder in Wisteria 3866. Two very determined ebayers dooked it out up to £192.99 and that’s a paddle steamer full of sippin’ whisky (Look, Masterspy, that’s your last warning about the cowboy stuff – you aren’t even on the right continent now, anyway so pull yourself together, ok?).

Wisteria 3866 cigarette holder

Had this particular desperado finished buying for the month, readers? No sirree! (Right, one more and you are banned from the site…. Awww, dang it, Harvey, give me a break!). 221lml came up with a delightful wall plaque in Farrago 3297. The “eBay desperado” had to pay £225.00.

Farrago 3297 plaque

Swiftly moving on to another “country” before I get my comeuppance, I was struck right in the volcanic eruptions (ouch) by a 12 inch (300 mm) conical footed bowl in what I believe to be a seriously underrated pattern, Iceland Poppy 4193 in pale gloss green ground. Seller decoy1690 came in from the cold (Now look, just because you have finally quit while you were ahead with the cowboy jokes doesn’t mean I will let you get away with starting all over again with Iceland puns….. You spoilsport, Harvey) with a price of £90.70.

Iceland Poppy 4193 conical bowl

Another refugee from a Fieldings auction in May this year, I believe, was eBayed by wallsco2. A lovely orange ground 7½ inch (190 mm) footed conical bowl in Babylon 4137, it was BINned for £300.00. I would have loved this one myself readers (deep and longing sigh of resignation, mourning and sorrow), but I am afraid my chips are as soggy as it is possible to get one’s chips at the moment. This is such a delicate pattern and so suited to this shape in my opinion. What do you think of it, readers?

Babylon 4137 conical bowl

Where are the Chinoiserie pieces I hear you cry? (OK, before you start Masterspy, don’t go there with the jokes about China, or we will end up causing a diplomatic incident and maybe even WW3…. Who me? Would I, Harvey?) Well, anyway readers, the prize for the biggest hunk of the month goes to seller gemsantiques who has hopefully undertaken extensive manual handling training before picking up this sumo sized beast (Oops). 15½ inches (390 mm)  tall and weighing in at who knows what, this temple jar in BARGE 2519 sold for £210.00. Better display it in a floor mounted cabinet made of something solid like mahogany, dear buyer.

BARGE 2519 temple jar

Another nice piece was this nice 10½ inch (265 mm) tall vase in TEMPLE 2928 which was sold BIN for £150.00 by the-eclectic-pottery-and-porcelain-shop. I wonder if this seller regrets choosing this name. It must take forever typing it out every time.

TEMPLE 2928 vase shape 172

It would be remiss not to mention the lidded temple jar in CHINALAND 2948 supplied by regular seller mackems1 which attracted 20 bids and finally said sayonara at £325.69 (Ha, sneaked that one in without him noticing readers….. sssshhhh now, or he will be telling me off again). Not bad, considering it has a restored finial.

CHINALAND 2948 covered vase Shape 244

Catstealer had a rinky dinky little 3 inch (75mm)  bowl in Mandarins Chatting 3654 which he did on a BIN for £125.00. It caught my attention (Must have been a Chinese whisper rather than a full on chat – phew, looks like he’s still asleep), but alas we can’t afford to bid on every one, can we readers? I haven’t got any pieces in the green frieze version of MC, either. Curses.

Mandarins Chatting 3654 bowl 3" diameter

Whizzing round the planet to yet another continent a nice fat little vase in TUT 2711 was rolled across the tomb entrance by torbayantiquecentre. Howard Carter was cursed with having to pay £161.99 to gaze upon this little Pharaohs’ treasure after seeing off all the other ebay archaeologists with a swift kick in the Anubis (At least that one showed a modicum of effort smartypants…. Hey, who are you calling smarty-pants, Harvey?). Oh well, it’s got its own entry in my little Book of the Dead now!

TUT 2711 vase

Whilst we wait at least a mere 3335 years for Tut’s Mummy to rise again we must not forget to honour the lovely cup and saucer in the Egyptian Fan 3696 auctioned by fmr11434. Despite slight wear to the gilding it entered the afterlife at a heavenly £176.00 (groan, I give up – Harvey).

Egyptian Fan MELON coffee cup & saucer

And finally, the intrepid travellers return to good old Blighty just in time for the postman to deliver the spoils of victory and for a nice afternoon cream tea on the lawn at the back of the “Big House”, looking over at Cook’s cottage garden and the magnificent, gently waving spires of Hollyhocks sheltering the smaller plants from the cooling summer breeze. Yes readers, right in at the death with only a little over an hour of the month remaining, UK seller nunraw BINned an 8″ ginger jar in HOLLYHOCKS 3820 with a bit of a hairline in the lid for a remarkable £450.00. A fitting conclusion to our Carlton Ware trip round the world (and in a record breaking 31 days too, readers – none of this taking 80 days rubbish).

HOLLYHOCKS 3820 ginger jar

Did our intrepid heroes find any strange new ebay fungi during their trip this month?  Don’t be silly, of course they did.
I am more than a little surprised that somebody might want a sticker for their car which proclaims that there are “Idiots Inside”, even allowing for the incredibly weak Intel Corp pun. After all, a wee while watching them drive the said car would probably provide the viewer with ample evidence of the truth of the statement without their having to pay good cash money to permanently deface the bodywork on their vee-hicle!

Lastly, I am also more than unconvinced that anybody might be foolish enough to part with any of their hard earned (even the modest sum of £5.57 plus postage) for a necklace made up of a variety of nuts (no, honestly) in an oval mount hung from a “silver tone” chain.  Takes all sorts readers, doesn’t it?

Ok pardners, I’ll climb back onto m’hoss fer another month and ride slowly off into the sunset. At this point you will just have to imagine the sight of ebay masterspy walkin’ off like John Wayne to get on his hoss.

Anybody seen my silver star????

Feel free to send your responses as usual,

Happy eBaying,
eBay Masterspy
With deep apologies to Harvey Pettit, CWW Webmaster and all round good guy.

JAZZ 3353 ginger jar

I rarely mention items which haven’t sold, because by definition they were overpriced and you know my thoughts on that. I do want to mention 2 particular items, however. Firstly there was a Nightingale 3562 vase in a very unusual shape offered by andyh1116 for £1000. 

Nightingale 3562 vase

Secondly a Scimitar 3651 footed and handled dish with some considerable wear to gilding offered unsuccessfully by roskilly a seller from the USA for £1200 (and since reoffered for £1050). These items should sell easily, so come on lads or lasses, give us all a chance and list them at a price people will bid on.

Scimitar 3651 footed fruit

Speaking of Nightingale 3562, last month you may remember I included an item on a tall pedestal gondola. I mentioned there was more to come on this, but at that time I could go no further. Well, the tragedy is that it arrived broken! The buyer, as you can imagine, was absolutely mortified. I was sent this picture by the buyer and when I opened it I let out such a cry of pain that a person in the next room came running in thinking I had hurt myself. Come on sellers, you know what the post is like. There is no point in this whole exercise if the pot ends up broken.

Damaged Nightingale footed gondola

mackems1, a reliable and frequent CW seller from Darlington in England, placed a nice 10″ REVO bowl in the highly colourful HANDCRAFT pattern DAISY 3673 on eBay which received 25 bids and sold for £127.50. This is a pattern I like because of its exuberance and the freedom of expression used it its design and execution.

DAISY 3673 REVO tray

Another stunner from mackems1 was this superb 12″ lidded vase in CHINESE BIRD & CLOUD 3275. A magnificent piece – Carlton Ware right at the top of their game. It went for a bargain price of £349.99 after 16 bids.

CHINESE BIRD & CLOUD 3275 covered vase

6″ Geometrica 3566 vases don’t come up on ebay very often, so to see a pair for sale was possibly unique. 40 bids were made on them and the price went up and up like a conversion in rugby to £533.62.

Geometrica 3566 vases S406

A nice pedestal powder bowl, or footed puff as it was called in sales literature, in Orchid 3255 was auctioned by anglo-french-antiques, but for some reason (perhaps that it has a hairline) it only attracted one bid, so it sold for the starting price of £39.95. Even with a hairline that seems a bargain to me.

Orchid 3255 'footed puff' bowl

 Mrs Masterspy has a phrase for large, ostentatious diamond rings; she calls them “dobbers” (you can take the girl out of…. etc). So in that spirit inspiration54 a seller from Scotland sold an 18″ (yes, I did say 18″) lidded temple jar in CHINESE FIGURES 3199 for the Buy it Now price of £395.00. This “dobber” would break your toes if it dropped on them (so be careful out there guys).

CHINESE FIGURES temple jar

Weeshred, a seller from Northern Ireland, climbed aboard and set sail on a very unusual shaped large BARGE 2519 11½” vase. There were only 4 bids, but a price of £200 was achieved. Still a good buy, methinks, me hearties, ooohh arrrh (sorry, I was on nautical overload there).

BARGE 2519 vase

Another BIN was a late 1950’s coffee set in ORBIT. This pattern seems to be gaining in popularity. andrew07734, yet another Scottish seller, gave it the whole 9 yards in his description of its attributes and place in history and obtained a selling price of £425.00.

ORBIT coffee set

A few pieces of Tendrillon 3858 have come up recently (and in one case has disappeared mysteriously “no longer available” – I was not amused). One which was sold was an 8″ lidded ginger jar. It went for a healthy £200.00 after 9 bids were made.

Tendrillon 3858 ginger jar

Another piece featuring black as a major colour was a 9½” vase in Cubist Butterfly 3190. In excellent condition (which can be a problem with this pattern) it sold on another BIN for £350.00. This was eBayed by nunraw ANOTHER Scottish seller. What is going on north of the Border? Don’t you like CW anymore?

Cubist Butterfly 3190 vase S406

Described as a plate in the unusal Flower Mountain 3463, a piece was auctioned by charliesgal. This 10″ x 8″ plate was called OCTAGON CAKE in factory shape records. 6 bidders fancied it and it went for a massive £512.00.

Flower Mountain 3463 'OCTAGON CAKE' plate

A rare survivor, a Dragon & Traveller 3656 10″ REVO bowl (not to be confused with the REVO tray shape in the next entry) complete with its original stand, pulled in 17 bids and finished at £380.00. A super piece, which regrettably is not part of my collection despite my best efforts…. aaaahhhh.

Dragon & Traveller 3656 REVO bowl & stand

veryluckysilverpig (another of my favourite seller names) sold a Needlepoint 3815 10″ REVO tray with only a little gild rubbing on the edge to worry about for £181.86 after a 7 way duel. This is a terrific pattern and rarely seen on eBay. The buyer of this one is a lucky boy or girl.

Needlepoint 3815 REVO tray

Finaly, a Mad quote of the Month…. 

I quote from Wikipedia…. “Carlton Ware was a famous Stoke-on-Trent based pottery manufacturer. The company is best remembered for its often rather garish tableware”. How dare they???? They know nowt!  

The unseeing have used this word when colour is used in adventurous ways; Klimp, Picasso and Wahol have all been accused of the same! 

Work by Gustav Klimt, Picasso and Andy Warhol, all accused of being 'garish'!

Do I see a smile on Marilyn’s face? Carlton Ware is in good company!

Feel free to respond to my blog by clicking on the ’Leave a comment’ link below.

Happy ebaying,

EBay masterspy

Another month has passed and more CW has passed me by. Hey ho. If only I had enough money for the WAGON WHEELS 3813 jug vase auctioned by doc_julio. Trust me I haven’t. It went for a whacking great £1200. What a beauty though. A masterspy reader, Dennis, called it the “real deal”. Couldn’t agree more!

WAGON WHEELS 3813 jug vase S496

bull4949 brought to market a terrific gondola in Gazania3592. A good example, this piece attracted over 160 watchers and 5 bidders made 9 bids, which topped out at £207.65.

Gazania 3592 GONDOLA

Those who know me will tell you that I am partial to a spot of MODERN WARE. auchoillie4 auctioned a 4 person coffee set in different mottled colours with lashings of gilding. With little wear, and being so unusual, it surprised me that only one bid was made on the set, so it sold for the starting price of £199.99. However, Sara and John, who had seen these items in the flesh observed that some of the decoration was crude suggesting that it could have been part out decorated.

MODERN part coffee set

Well known collector and seller cpm1947 used eBay to divest herself of a lovely vase in Hedgerow 4119 (aka Primula and Leaf with Butterfly). The vase sold for £131.00 after 2 bids. Again this piece went for less than one would think for a piece in such lovely condition. EBay strikes again, giving somebody a real bargain.

Hedgerow 4119 vase S406

One of CW’s many triumphs as a pottery maker was the stunning pattern Nightingale 3562. a.kerr put up a wonderful tall stemmed gondola for sale in almost unmarked condition. This time there were 15 bids and the price rose to £571.00. In my view another super bargain, but hold hard readers, there may be more on this in a future edition of my blog.

Nightingale 3562 REVO COMPORT

One of the most consistent and successful sellers of CW on eBay is oscarpops. This seller must have a cellar somewhere stuffed full of joy for a CW collector. I was particularly taken with a fantastic 10” OXFORD bowl in CHINALAND 3015 on the ruby ground. Ye gods and little fishes, what a pot! You must all agree with me out there, because there were 460 viewers. 11 bids were tabled and the outcome was a cracking £776.00.

CHINALAND 3015 OXFORD bowl

Do you like a clean and simple classic deco pattern, dear readers? What about Carre 3658? A nice jug was listed by vons-treasurechest, which moved 5 bidders to make a play. The price reached £112.00, even with a little wear to the silvering on the handle.

Carre 3658 jug S469

Many people love Embossed Ware. I have a couple of pieces myself, readers. Mind you, I don’t have one of these. Seller attherainbowsend (how suitable a name in this case) auctioned a teapot in the purple lidded ANEMONE. After 15 bids it had achieved a lofty £361.51 – a terrific result.

ANEMONE teapot with purple lid

As many regular readers will know both Mrs. Masterspy and I love Summer Flowers 3926. I also love the diamond dish as a display shape. mybruno123’s offering combined both of these in one package. There were 15 bids, but the price only went to £84.00. The piece looked so good, the gilding looked sooooo perfect, if perhaps a little matt, I wondered if it was restored, or if potential bidders had thought so. Did you buy it? Is it restored? Beautiful nevertheless.

Summer Flowers 3926 diamond tray

Another stonking great success for oscarpops was a 442 shape vase in Heron & Magical Tree 4159. There were only 5 bidders, but by Godfrey, were they determined, or wot? The price ballooned to a massive £1232.21. A “Magical Tree” indeed!

Heron & Magical Tree 4159 vase

As if that wasn’t enough excitement for one month, dealsanmore put up a DEVIL 3765 vase in shape 217. Wowww! Light the blue touch paper and stand back to a safe distance. Only the daft and the dedicated need apply (10 did, making 20 bids). It soared to £1933.00! Go straight to your bank dealsanmore, do not pass go, do not collect £200 (after all, you don’t bloomin’ need it now, do you)? I would like to tell you about the DEVIL vase I own, but I can’t, for the simple reason that I don’t….. But somebody does….. Lucky devil!

DEVIL 3765 vase S217

Another fine example of Carlton Ware drew the month to a close. mackems1 risked it for a biscuit with a lovely covered vase in CHINALAND 2948 (great shape for this pattern). Unsurprisingly, this was hard fought over. After 13 bids, the victor has had to part with £671.83.

CHINALAND 2948 covered vase

Ok, so that’s dealt with the good stuff, now what about the mad stuff? Has eBay let us down this month? Not a bit of it, readers. With so many nutters out there is it possible to go a whole month without any mad items? No, of course not.

In the worrying section this month is dtm_enterprises. This eBayer listed 20 pens for £14.99 Buy it Now or Best Offer. So what, I hear you say? Well, it’s like this, the pens look like hypodermic syringes containing a coloured liquid and the seller says they would be good for a doctor, nurse or dentist. Ok, I don’t know about you, readers, but if my doctor or dentist hove into view clutching one of these pens and smiling a Boris Karloff smile I would be overtaking Usain Bolt as I left the surgery. Even weirder and more worrying still is that they have sold plenty of them!

Ok, so the last one could be put down as black but quirky humour (cast ye not a stone at her and so on). This one is just strange. Who would want to buy such a thing as this? Even odder is this seller’s sheer unmitigated cheek in listing an old faded Polaroid photo in poor condition and asking $35.00 (£21.60) for it as turntablebooks of New York did. Sorry, but that is plain old optimistic, stupid, or just mad, one or the other. Needless to say, no bids.

That’s one bookshop I am keeping out of next time I am in the Big Apple and no mistake.
Right, that’s my work done for another month, readers. As always I love your feedback. Feel free to respond using the response form provided.

Happy eBaying in September.
Ebay Masterspy.

Now that I know you all so well I thought it was time to let you know what I really look like, so here is a picture of me.

Masterspy!

Bonjour, mes amis! I am typing this month’s blog in a quirky little converted chapel in a village in France. As I am utterly dedicated to my readers what else could I do peoples?
After several days of wall to wall sun it actually had the temerity to rain this morning, so here we go.

July turned out quieter on eBay for us CW collectors. Numbers of items for sale fell by perhaps 25%. The sellers must be on their hollies too! Fortunately there were still enough intrepid sellers out there braving the holiday season and carrying on regardless.

I promised to mention some of the embossed patterns this month and I am a man of my word (except when due to pay my debts of course). One of the embossed items which took my attention was a chocolate mug and cover in the unusual embossed CLEMATIS pattern. This was sold by harvsrico and despite having a small chip on the lip it was really hard fought over (26 bids) and went for an amazing £343.33.

CLEMATIS chocolate mug & cover

Nadders sold a chocolate mug and cover in the more regularly seen embossed FOXGLOVE pattern which went for a very healthy £98.00 after 3 bids. These mugs are fairly common, but when they are intact with their lids much less so, hence the prices.

FOXGLOVE chocolate mug & cover

Another embossed piece which caught my eye was a water jug in FOXGLOVE sold by rothnut. There were 10 bids on this and an end result of £137.00. At nearly 11” in height a fairly big chunk of CW for your cash.

FOXGLOVE jug

Despite the foregoing high value items, one of the attractions of buying the embossed patterns is that it is very possible to amass a good collection without breaking the bank. A Canadian seller, rarebird1976, auctioned a nice cruet in FOXGLOVE this month, which was short of its stoppers. There were 7 bids, but the final price was only £22.70. Admittedly the postage to Europe would double the price in this case, but for a few pounds you could find a spoon and stoppers and it becomes a complete set for around £50 (even as an import to the UK). It can’t be bad, can it?

FOXGLOVE cruet

Not an embossed pattern as such, but similar in some ways, are the RIBBED STONEWARE dogs which come in a range of colours. Some are rarer than others. This one, in the purple colourway, was put up by chelevano. Four ebayers wanted this quite badly. 23 bids later it sold for £171.23.

RIBBED STONEWARE dog

Despite the lower volume of pieces on ebay this month, there were still a few rare items. One of these was a vase in Starflower 4215, shape 443, sold by kickonkate. A large piece at 11” in height, but with a 3” long crack, it still went for £140.58 after 13 bids. You don’t see this pattern on ebay more than once or twice a year at most, so I would guess that the winner is feeling pretty smug – I would be if it were me (which regrettably……. it wasn’t, hey ho).

Starflower vase

Another rarity was a 9” wall plate in Apples & Grapes 3571 listed by partiques*uk. This piece attracted 3 bidders who raised the bar to a stonking £620.00! A nice pattern and one I don’t recall seeing on eBay before, perhaps you do readers (if so let me know).

Apples & Grapes plate

Grenadier9975 listed 3 items which did exceptionally well this month. There was a 10” Mandarins Chatting 3653 ginger jar with lid in the ruby and black gloss ground which went for £719.99 despite having a hairline on the lid.
Next was an 8” Temple Jar in PARADISE BIRD & TREE WITH CLOUD 3144. There were 26 bids this time and the hammer price was £261.00.
Finally there was a single “Aztec” handled dish in the highly sought after pattern Secretary Bird 4017. There were an amazing 61 bids, which chased the price up to £281.00.

Mandarins Chatting ginger jar - PARADISE BIRD & TREE with CLOUD temple jar - Secretary Bird tray

After selling a vase in SCROLL 3412 recently, seller vanilla_pods found another one somewhere in the attic, 6” tall, with a very small chip on the rim. Despite this, it sold for £360.00 after 13 bids.

SCROLL vase

Now then readers, you want some more deco, you can have some more deco…. A stunning 10” REVO bowl in Zig-Zag 3356 came up this month, supplied by 4036jim. 9 bids later it sold for a very reasonable £142.00. A classic deco pattern and a bargain for some lucky eBayer.

Zig-zag REVO tray

Sometimes an auction for a regularly seen, but extremely pretty and delicate item does really well. Seller denjane would presumably have been happy to attract 7 bids for their cup and saucer in Summer Flowers 3926 and a finishing value of £82.00. Good result.

Summer Flowers MELON coffee cup & saucer

I know some of you like my little mad items. This month I have got to tell you about 2 items…. I just can’t split them. Firstly we have eBayer jammam44yhw who offered us a triangular shaped stone he found on a beach at Felixstowe in Suffolk when he was 5 years old. Despite starting the bidding at the lowest possible price – one whole penny – he didn’t manage to convince any of the millions of ebay users to bid on his “Amazing Stone”. Shame really, it’s all a bit sad isn’t it!

!!!

Then of course we have more mainstream nutters. How about lasttuesdaysociety who seemed to imagine that stapling a roast chicken, the head of a Marmoset, some old plastic tubing, some red wine and other odds and sods to a piece of white board and calling it “An alien on an operating table” would convince some utter fool to part with £235.00 on a Buy it Now. Good luck to you son. Hope you don’t burn up too much money on your listing fees. My wife thinks I am a mad collector. I comfort myself that I am not as mad as some.

Alien on operating table!

Best wishes to you all, nutters or otherwise. As usual, please make any comments you wish, I welcome them all from far and near.

Ebay Masterspy.