Automobilia China Part Two

By David Bausch

While most of the early china objects depicting the automobile were from Europe (the home of the automobile), it wasn’t long until the automobile fever caught on here in the U.S. of A. While Royal Doulton of England, and Villeroy and Boch of Germany were making china picturing the automobile, it was Roseville of Zanesville, Ohio, that took up the effort to portray the automobile on China in America.

Roseville produced a large series of pottery known as “Tourist.” There were 29 different shapes of pottery that carried the Tourist design. I should say designs, because there was more then one design in the series. Usually, two autos are found on the larger items and one on the smaller pieces. Some of the cars are roadsters and others are touring cars of different styles; one of the series shows a car broken down with a flat tire. A flat tire was not an unusual problem; at least not in the very early days of motoring. I am sure many of the motorists could relate to that experience.

A large jardinière on a pedestal base will command a price of $2,500 to $3,000. A small bowl can run around $300 to $500. Condition is very important, crazing is very common on this pottery, and crazing reduces the value of any item in this series.

Tags: Automobilia, china, Pottery

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 6th, 2008 at 11:04 pm and is filed under Articles, Blog Entry, Ceramics, Porcelain, Pottery and Clay, Transportation and Vehicles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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