Post Your Roseville Art Pottery!

Pieces also posted to finds thread. Previous collector paid up for this pair, $325 & $335 each. They still had their previous price stickers on them when I acquired them.

 

I remember when I first started going to the auction house where I work back in 2001 there were several big time Roseville collectors. Whenever a piece would come in you could almost count on very spirited bidding & if it was a certain pattern Katie bar the door!!! Now it might take us several auctions to get anyone to even bid $10 on pieces.

I often wonder what happened to some of those collections. There was 1 couple who were likely in their 70's & the wife was the collector. Her DH would dutifully buy whatever piece she wanted & would pay whatever he had to to get the piece. They openly admitted their children were not in the least impressed & wanted none of it.

 

It was like that in the mid-2000s here in mid-Ohio when I first started going to auctions with my parents. There was one older couple (in their 70's) in particular that had a massive collection of art pottery, glass, and Hummel's among other things. They bought a good 60-70% of the pieces that came up at auction, actively attended every sale in a 100 mile radius, and paid very strong money for any "better" pattern and huge money for Rookwood. It was entirely pointless to even try to bid against them -- if they wanted it, it was going to be theirs. I was told by local antique dealers, other attendees that the he was a retired farmer who also owned a small business that made him wealthy and that he and his wife had been collecting for decades. They apparently had in excess of 1000 pieces of Roseville Pottery plus significant amounts of Rookwood, Weller, and Hull pottery. I always have wondered what happened to this collection after they stopped attending estate auctions.

There was also an older woman who attended several auctions I was at in about 2006 who bought up every "better" pattern piece of Roseville that she could find for huge money. My father who collected Roseville at the time ran the bid up to "crazy" levels since it was apparent to everyone that she wasn't going to stop until she had the item. A few months later we saw the exact same pieces go up on eBay for double the going rate. We called her the "Wadsworth Lady" since she was from the Akron, OH suburb of Wadsworth and apparently had a wad of cash to blow. She ended up not selling more than a piece or two on the Bay although she kept relisting them for several years.

I also met a few super-collectors of Hull Pottery during that timeframe before the pottery market melted down. One older gentleman claimed to have 500 pieces of Hull including many pieces of Bow-Knot which was super expensive and sought after at the time.

 

In 2004 a niece called to ask me if I would be willing to help her sell some stuff that the previous owners had left in the house they bought.

It sounded like a good excuse to go up to Toledo to visit the family so off I went. She gathered everything up & had it in the dining room. Most of the stuff was okay but there was a very nice Roseville piece sitting in the middle of it all. I asked her what she thought was the best piece & she pointed to a pile of military stuff. When I told her it was the Roseville piece she looked disappointed. She was planning on putting it out in the garden & planting some pansies in it.

I told her to go over to Target & buy a pottery planter, that the piece was going home with me. She ended up selling it for $150.00. LOL

 

what...no Futura ?

 

What do you think I am? Made of money?

Not yet! Have only seen a few pieces in person and they sold for very strong money. I'm hoping to find a piece I can afford eventually.

 

Likewise....

 

The couple you speak of here, were their names David and Mary? Also, huge collectors of Heisey?

 

I believe her name was Mary and I don't recall his, my parents and I always referred to them as the "Roseville" people since if a piece of Roseville Pottery was offered at auction they would be there to bid on it. I believe they lived in or near Mansfield, Ohio but would travel within mid-Ohio if there were good pieces to be had. They were in poor health when I moved away for college in 2007. He always wore coveralls with suspenders, was kind of rotund and his wife was very short and frail. They would occasionally let up and let my parents purchase a piece or two of art pottery.

 

Not the couple I was thinking of, but I'm sure they are duplicated at many auctions.

 

Roseville Futura - Not one of the high $$$ pieces of this pattern but a nice undamaged piece with the original foil label.

 

Nice, Joe! I need to take a pic, but it's been so gloomy here it's a problem. I got a nice short candle holder in Pine Cone over Thanksgiving weekend.

 

Here's my piece of Pine Cone!!

 

Very nice!

Other than Futura, what are/have been considered the premium Roseville patterns?

The story of the older collector couple is interesting. Chances are good their children didn’t want it. There is article after article online re children not wanting their parents’ stuff. Maybe some like something utilitarian such as flatware or dishes, but art pottery, let alone collectibles, don’t seem to garner interest.

Of course, collecting Roseville and other art pottery has been a fairly high end pursuit. In the 1970s and 1980s, my parents “invested” in the Bradford Exchange collectible plates (think Norman Rockwell).

 

think Pao Chi.......better yet....don't..

 

Oh dear, that's rather frightening!

The Roseville lines that came out around the same time as Futura are usually desirable - like Blackberry, Cherry Blossom, and Moss. You need to be careful, though, even with Futura. Common shapes will not sell as well as more unusual shapes like floor vases and wall pockets.

 

Not an all inclusive list but I think the following mostly covers the better patterns you are likely to see out there.

Baneda, Blackberry, Falline, Moss, Morning Glory, Pine Cone, Rosecraft Panel, Rosecraft Vintage, Sunflower, and Wisteria

Then there is patterns like Roseville Della Robbia that are very scarce and extremely expensive.

 

I can’t tell you how many people come up to me at antique shows looking to sell the collector plates their parents bought as an investment! I try to let them down gently

 

Happy New Year, all!

Yes, it was a painful lesson. I myself bought several collectors plates while in college. I shudder to think how much better I would have done had I purchased Catalina or Bauer instead. I ended up donating them to Goodwill. Every now and then I will see similar plates at an antique store.

I like Roseville’s Aztec Blue and Velmoss Scroll patterns and, of course, Futura.

 

Well folks I must either be a fool or a glutton for punishment by collecting so much art pottery since the market is very weak and who knows if it will ever recover. I do NOT recommend anybody wanting any reasonable return on investment from purchasing art pottery for resale. Personally I am a collector first and foremost, and will to attempt to wait the bad times for art pottery out and hope that twenty years from now I don't have a bunch of pretty paperweights that are worth zilch. Added a few pieces of Roseville today. Happy collecting!

Saw an monumental piece of Della Robbia sell today so that was exciting. No - I didn't even think of purchasing it since that stuff is out of my league and it realized $5,200.

Roseville Blackberry - One of the few lines that still seems to sell fairly well and it is perhaps my favorite pattern.

Roseville Orian - I think I did OK on these going by how much damage pieces are going for on the bay. Orian apparently is relatively scarce. Haven't see a lot of it out there in my 15 years of collecting.

Roseville Tuscany - Inexpensive but not one of the more common lines you see all the time. Think I did well on this one despite the woes of the market.

Lots of art pottery currently being offered for sale in my area of the country. Based on hints from the sellers I think the bulk of it is from one estateof a recently deceased dealer who had thousands of pieces packed into their home and is currently supplying three, perhaps more, auctioneers with large quantities of art pottery and is saturating the market.