Pot

SPECIAL Auction Services, the West Berkshire auctioneers best known for regular sales of commemoratives and pot lids, are themselves on the market.

Pot-Lids and other Coloured Printed Staffordshire Wares: Reference and Price Guide by KV Mortimer, published by the Antique Collectors’ Club, ISBN 1851494383, £35hb. ALL the literature on pot lids is now well over 20 years old – the ACC’s last book on the subject, The Price Guide to Pot-Lids and other Under-Glazes, was published in 1970 and again in 1980.

RARELY one to miss a commercial opportunity, from pub jugs to caviar pots, Henry Doulton’s potworks in Lambeth produced stoneware advertising novelties for many local businesses. There are, for example, a series of paperweights made for the Thames boat people carrying the names of the companies who commissioned them as gifts for their best clients.

This unmarked mid-19th century chamber pot was one of the choice lots in the mixed-vendor section of Dreweatt Neate’s recent sale.