EARLY NEWSLETTERS OF THE MOORCROFT COLLECTORS` CLUB

Around the beginning of March I was informed that early newsletters of The Moorcroft Collectors` Club were selling on Ebay for very high prices: number 1 sold for £620 and soon after number 2 for £641!! These prices are staggering and incredible!!
Since then prices have come down dramatically and stabilised, though in May a collection consisting of the first 7 numbered newsletters and one other of the Club`s publications (they were not all numbered newsletters, see below) sold for approximately £850. Still a fairly hefty price!
It`s interesting to reflect that a number of these in a lot at Christie`s in October 1996 had failed to produce an invited £50 opening bid!
(See my own Newsletter Number 4.)
Referring to the Christie`s catalogue: the lot consisted of Newsletters 1,3,4,5 together with magazines Dec 1989-92, and “The People Behind the Pots”. (This latter was, in fact, the first of the magazines which didn`t call itself a newsletter, and after Dec `92 the subsequent brochures sent out to members were all newsletters.)
One wonders whether my own newsletters will ever become collectors` items in the ephemera market!
Does anyone still have numbers 1 and 2?

WILLOW ART CHINA: MODEL OF BUNYAN`S STATUE, BEDFORD CREST

This is a very good example of how not to restore something! (See illustration below) Who would imagine a piece of crested china being restored anyway! Hence it caught me out! (It was among a tray of crested items, but seemed to be one of the better pieces!)
I sold it, of course, as restored (for, in fact, slightly less than I`d assigned to it as the cost price!), but it fell apart while being wrapped up (not by me!), and the customer must no longer have wanted it, though now that I`ve re-glued the parts it`s a much more honest piece! One might even say it now has integrity!
For the simple clean crack the “restorer” has put poorly matching white paint from the gilding of the pedestal right up to Bunyan`s knees!!
On the right hand side there are still the daubs of different white paint as the “restorer” tries to find the best colour (and didn`t bother, or forgot, to remove them!) to match in with the colour of the china (or in this case to deceive, which must be the objective of all over-restoration).
All the white paint unnecessarily applied should be removed and the pieces simply repaired with superglue if they come apart again: the piece does not merit the expense of restoring the break properly.
To restore properly, any interference with the surface being repaired should be minimal, so that as much as possible of the original surface texture can still be seen, and on close inspection the experienced eye will see the area of repair, be able to appreciate its nature and extent, and the skills of the restorer in matching in the repair.

Anyone want to give me £10 for it?