Sunderland Figurines ("Summer," "Autumn," & "Winter"), ca. 1823

Appraised on: August 21, 2004

Appraised in: Portland, Oregon

Appraised by: Nicholas Dawes

Category: Pottery & Porcelain

Episode Info: Portland, Hour 1 (#913)

Originally Aired: April 18, 2005

IMAGE: 1 of 1  

Appraisal Video: (3:10)

APPRAISER: Now, tell me, what do you know about these figurines, Zach?

GUEST: Well, um, I know that they were my great-grandparents', and then they gave it to my Grandma Bunny, and they gave it to my dad, and that's where they ended up.

APPRAISER: Great. Which is your favorite one?

GUEST: It's actually Winter.

APPRAISER: Winter, okay. Well, you can see there's three of them, but there should be four of them.

GUEST: Yeah.

APPRAISER: Because you've got Summer and Autumn and Winter...

GUEST: So one's missing.

APPRAISER: What's missing?

GUEST: It is Spring.

APPRAISER: Spring.

GUEST: Every time I go look at them, um... they look sad, because Spring's missing.

APPRAISER: Aw... Well, I'd say Winter looks the saddest. She's got that robe over her head, because she's cold because it's winter. But these are old figures. They came from England originally.

GUEST: They did?

APPRAISER: Yeah, and we know that because all of them have got marks on them. I'm going to show the mark to everybody. We see these figures sometimes, but we don't see them very often with a mark. See right here?

GUEST: Yeah.

APPRAISER: It says "Dixon, Austin & Company." Now, that's a mark that was put on when these were made, in about 1820. Dixon, Austin and Company worked in England in a town called Sunderland, which is in the northeast of England, from... only from about 1820 to about 1826. They worked at a place called the Garrison Pottery. And this kind of pinkish color that the robes of the figurines have-- we call that "Sunderland lustre," because Sunderland is the town that made this lustre kind of famous. And we don't see a great deal of Sunderland lustre of this age in this country-- these are nice early ones-- especially figurines. Now, these are in pretty good condition. Some of them have a little damage, all right? Have you seen any damage on any of them?

GUEST: I've seen one on this one, the cracks and the chip, and there's one on the bottom of this.

APPRAISER DAWES: Yeah, little chips. But you know, these were made in 1820-- that's pretty old, so considering that, they've survived pretty well. You'd expect them to have a little bit of chips here and there, little bit of restoration. Now, a set of three figures in this condition, without the fourth, marked by the maker and early-- they're going to have some value. I talked about it with some of my colleagues here on ANTIQUES ROADSHOW. We figured today if they came up at a good auction, they'd probably sell for at least $1,500.

GUEST: That's a lot.

APPRAISER: That's a lot. Maybe 2,000.

GUEST: Whoa.

APPRAISER: But now, if you found Spring, see, you'd have a set of four. So I figure what you should do is go looking for Spring.

GUEST: That's what we're going to try to do. We're going to try to call my great-aunt to see if she has it. We think she has it, so...

APPRAISER: All right, so it may still be somewhere in the family. Well, try and track it down, okay? Because if you can find Spring, it's going to be worth more money. The set could be worth as much as maybe $3,000, if you've got Spring, because that's going to complete the set, so you've got to go looking.

GUEST: We will. Is this the part on it when they have the thing that shoots by?

APPRAISER: Yeah.