Staffordshire Pottery Auction<br> <em>The Stockman Collection Sold Out!</em>

Published 11th September 2012

Lady Hester Stanhope and Dr Meryon, fetched £900 at auction in Honiton (HO55/145).

The Staffordshire Pottery Collection of the late Paul and Dorothy Stockman certainly attracted a lot of attention in Honiton earlier today. It has been some time since such an accumulation of Staffordshire Pottery has come to the market, so the sale room was full and bidding on the Internet and by telephone was brisk. As well as the specialist domestic trade, there was significant attention from America and Australia without a single unsold lot, the total for the sale was £107,000.

Despite international competition, the top lot of the day was a group of Staffordshire Cats sold to a local collector for £1,700. There were several sought after dogs and 'best in show' went to a pair of Staffordshire Pottery seated Saluki for a hammer price of £980 and 'Billy the Rat Catcher' went back to London where he first plied his trade for £740.

High Fliers! A pair of Staffordshire Giraffes realised £1,600. (HO55/111).

However, it was always going to be the exotic animals that featured most regularly at the top of the prices-realised table with a pair of Staffordshire Giraffes fetching £1,600, a group of lions (including a 'Lloyd of Shelton' example) £1,050 and Jumbo the Elephant making £800 despite a lengthy crack, both of the latter to the trade.

The most desirable portrait groups on the day were a restored pair of Lady Hester Stanhope and Dr Meryon, which fetched a hammer price of £900 and a good Florence Nightingale is leaving our shores for Los Angeles, having achieved £750.

The best of the earlier pearlware groups were four pointers and a small herd of Walton cows which sold for £760 and £720 respectively, both to the West Country trade.