Featured What am I missing??? Pricey price tag on a homemade pot?

So, a few years back My lad and I went to an organized hoarder couples’s estate sale. They had a bit of everything and most was to my taste. It was a freaking dream. Fill a box and the sale runners suggested a price. I never haggled. It was cheap. It got to the point where we just grabbed anything that was cool or interesting because it was going to cost pennies per item.

And that’s how I got it. The Ugly Pot. I picked it up because it reminded me of the old Vancouver Canucks Flying V jersey. I liked the colours too. But like the Flying V, it is an ugly beast. It’s small - about 3 inches high- and looks like it has some age to it, so it went in the box to join the other small vases at home.

And then I saw the price tag. 40 bucks? How, why, huhhhhhh? It wasn’t an estate sale sticker. It was from its life before! The thing was dumped on a basement shelf. Granted, it was with some ivory bits and 70-year-old bubble lights in the box. But what? The old couple seemed to have had sense in their buying choices. I had even purchased a small bit of their Xmas hoard from a reseller at prices that indicated that they didn't spend too much.

So, what I am really asking is what am I missing? Is this some pot Clarice Cliff made after too many glasses of brandy? Is it a good thing? Or is it, as I see it, just a fugly little cheery pot that someone was being cheeky about?

 

JMHO - Inflated sense of worth by the artist who made it.

 

I also like the V and colours used. It has a cool retro vintage look.Seems a crazy price tag that. I don’t know much about pottery. Have you tried researching the signature?

 

My vote is for fugly, cheery, and cheeky.


... and also, I love a sale like that!!

 

the 1st price was 4 bucks.....then someone got funny !

 

Funny strange or funny haha?

 

Looks like the original price was 400, not 4.

 

I was thinking along the lines of Clarice Cliff at first sight.

But a search brings up Crown Devon Geometric or Susie Cooper Moon and Mountains are more like it. Looks like they were all factory made though, didn't see any hand thrown pots.

 

I tried a little. No luck so far.

Oh, it was just the best. And we found it by chance driving home after a college course final. I got some very, very nice things there. By the end, it was really just trying to save stuff. People had just dumped boxes everywhere. My only regret was a wee cased daguerreotype of an old man and little girl. I didn’t grab it on day one because it had a tag and it was expensive. Had I put it in the box, the tag wouldn’t have been considered. Next visit, later that day, I found it on the ground, completely destroyed. It still bugs me I didn’t save it.

Thanks all for the thoughts! Looks like you all agree with my impression. I do like it’s design - even if it is a bit chipped and crude- so will keep it. Might leave the tag to confuse future owners

 

LOL and I flashed on her too. For sure someone who liked her Bizarre Melons.

 

My first thought was "V for Victory"!

 

So weird I didn’t think of that! I regularly wear an old bracelet made of Canadian tombac V nickels and every year I get my dad Victory V candies for his bday! I think you might have found the inspiration for the design

 

Signed Hylda Cooke, Crown Devon Fieldings pottery. Thumbnail above, Google Images, dead eBay link.

Hylda Cooke, Crown Devon pottery. Another dead eBay link from Pinterest.

Hylda Cooke at WorthPoint:
https://www.worthpoint.com/inventory/search?query=Hylda+Cooke&categories=

Just in case you ever find this information useful. I'd say your pot painter was imitating Hylda Cooke or actually was Hylda Cooke.

 

Well, holy smokes! Definitely one or the other. The magpie in me now wants a signed one so they can sit side by side and be friends! Thanks! How did you find it, if you don’t mind me asking? I had no luck with reverse image but I never do...

 

It was image search, which on this Android phone only works probably 1% of the time for me, too, LOL. The first hit I got was that broken cup picture in the stock photos. Then I reverse image searched that pic and came up with the Devon geometric patterns, and reverse image searched some of them until I came up with Hylda Cooke's name. Whew! Kind of tedious, but I knew it was going somewhere, and just worked on it off and on at my leisure over the weekend.

 

It's weird though, I can't come up with any little bios of Hylda Cooke nor an obituary. It would be interesting to know what other art work she did besides designing, painting and signing Crown Devon pottery.

 

Great effort. Well done!

 

Wow! Thank you so much for the time and effort! Good tip to to work backwards like that. I do it with genealogy but never thought to use it like this. I will going forward!

Speaking of genealogy, I too was curious and looked for a bio. No dice. I was going to check Ancestry tomorrow but, since insomnia is playing with me, I think I will now.

ETA - I am pretty sure I found her. There was a Hilda Cooke 1910-1982 or 1994, born and died in Stoke-on-Trent, who married a Wilmot Brown in 1933. In 1939 she is listed as a pottery freehand paintress in the England and Wales register. Will have to look further for an obit tomorrow.

In the meantime, this is apparently Hilda and Wilmot circa 1955!

 

OMgosh! Look at that picture! There's a plane flying by, out over the ocean. Cool dress and necklace she's wearing too, LOL.