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Alexis Antiques eNewsletter |
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Dear Wedgwood Enthusiast,
We at Alexis Antiques are excited to bring you our newly resurrected newsletter which we have not produced in quite some time. With the exciting and fast growth of Internet use and sophistication have come some downsides like SPAM! Too many things, and rightfully so, end up in the electronic trashcan rendering our own mailing list unmanageable. We have contracted with a service to provide us with the means to send out information we hope you will welcome, enjoy and find helpful without having our efforts end up in your spamtrash. PLEASE know that if you opt out using the links at the bottom of this email, our software WILL remove you from our emailing list. It will not remove your request from our "WANT LIST", however. We have worked long and hard to legally and ethically collect our mailing list names and we guard it ferociously. We will not lend, sell or otherwise give it to anyone! And you can bank on that! Please just email any time you wish to add a product to your WANT LIST.
Hints of things to Come
Alexis Antiques IS in the business of selling Wedgwood products from two websites, www.alexisantiques.com and www.collegeplates.com. So, yes, our enewsletters will promote new items we have found, old items we wish to put on sale, suggested uses for things we have in stock. We promise it will also bring you fun Wedgwood-related stories, news, articles and the like. We have an extensive library and love to share information so you can expect to see some book reviews, magazine reviews, historic bits of Wedgwood information, recommendations to and news about the various worldwide Wedgwood organizations, news from the factory and the Wedgwood Museum in Barlaston, England. You can expect to hear from Wedgwood experts, Wedgwood sellers and Wedgwood buyers. We hope you will scan our mailings and realizing the depth and breadth of Wedgwood production over the past two centuries plus, you'll find articles on your special interest, perhaps not every issue, but often enough that you'll keep reading. We hope to appease some of the people some of the time, and hope that all of the people some of the time find something to latch onto! Your input is welcome and solicited.
Familiarize yourself with WWW.ALEXISANTIQUES.COM -
Much has changed!
We hope you have looked recently because in the past year we have made vast improvements in content and ease of use. The layout is similar to eBay! The search/browse tool is fun and easy. Type in words such as tea, teapot, plate, landscape, Barnard, Cooper, shell or lustre and you will find all our related items. Many common misspellings will even return results! Or search by categories or by an item name and category, or by price range or by mark (but beware due to inconsistencies in Wedgwood marks and our data entry, it's not absolute!). Soon we'll have a rolling, automated list of new items. Start with reading our abbreviations, become familiar with them to help you more quickly and smartly navigate and to understand the results returned. All our items are listed in an Access database leaving us sometimes little flexibility. But the next most important feature, NEW AND FEATURED ITEMS, will help with that. It is here we can expound on the details of products and give hints and helps on navigating the site. This is where you will see the list of newly-added items and specifics about particular items or things like gift certificates and other services we offer. All navigation is so simple, just pick the choice from the dark blue bar on the lefthand side of home page and many other pages. It's so fast and easy! We use it ourselves because it is so much easier than going into our own database!
Use these simple tools to familiarize yourself with how it all works, then email if you have any questions! We're always happy to help! But most of all, have fun! 99% of the items are photographed with another 14 plate photos coming soon for a full 100%.
Non-Wedgwood Inventory
Most of you know us as Wedgwood dealers, but we do from time to time list other products that might be of interest. Rosenthal china items sometimes show up, they're now part of the Wedgwood Group, because we sometimes find something we think you'll like. Non-Wedgwood production is ALWAYS marked with its maker's name or we state we do not know the name of the manufacturer if that is the case. In our College Plates business we sell any manufacturer's plates if they are of good quality so if no manufacturer is listed, it is Wedgwood; others are listed by name.
New Category - American Historical China and Memorabilia
Because we are history buffs we love to buy and sell historical china, and all of it is not made by Wedgwood. Again, if it does not list a manufacturer, it IS Wedgwood. Check out this category for items commissioned for many major American Historical events - the Bicentennial, George Washington's Inauguration anniversary, the sailing of the Mayflower anniversary and many more. All our items sort into their major categories but if you use the Browser window set to "all items" it will return items of all makes and bodies. As an example, type in Mayflower and the search will return Queen's Ware and jasperware items. If you search Mayflower only in blue jasper, that's all you'll see! Using ALL ITEMS is great until you figure out exactly what you really want to see, then become accustomed to using the various categories. Enough housekeeping!
WEDGWOOD in the NEWS
TWO DAY MAJOLICA AUCTION with 1500 pieces by Majolica Auctions, Michael G. Strawser, April 1 and 2, 2005 in Hatfield, PA. Go to www.majolicaauctions.com for more information. I counted at least 42 lots of Wedgwood majolica and green glaze wares. Strawser produces a fine auction catalog at a reasonable price.
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2004 American Spirit Magazine published by the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution includes an article about the Charleston (SC) Old Exchange Building which was the last building built under British rule in the American colonies. It was saved by a local DAR chapter and in the well-written article one can see several beautiful photos, one of which shows a china cabinet full of the Wedgwood issue of 12 historic plates showing scenes pertinent to George Washington's life and career. The set was commissioned by the DAR upon the Bicentennial of Washington's inauguration. (Yes, we have several of them in stock-go to American HIstorical China category and in the browser bar type in George.) There is a set in the DAR Headquarters and some interesting other Wedgwood in the DAR Museum, both in Washingon, DC. Speaking of our Nation's capital, please see our INFORMATIONAL LINKS to all the major Wedgwood societies around the globe. The Washington Society produces a spectacular newsletter and its Board members are among our good friends. You'll see frequent items of interest relative to the Capital Society and its members in our coming enewsletters.
Better Homes and Gardens Special Interest Publications BEAUTIFUL INTERIORS on shelves until May 24 contains a profusely illustrated article on Wedgwood Queen's Ware, its fabulous borders, colors and shapes. The article's author was assisted by our good friend Lynn Miller at the Wedgwood Museum. If you are at all interested in creamware this magazine is a must purchase, and in our opinion worth the rather stiff $8 cost. The hint that the issue was on stands came to us courtesy of Adele Barnett, President of the Wedgwood Society of Washington, DC.
Many of you know we collect old magazines for that tiny scrip or scrap of Wedgwood information, and have published, along with Gwen Steapp of Steapp Back in Time Antiques, a bibliography containing the issue numbers of many older magazines with Wedgwood-related information. We will continue to tell you about articles we find that might be lurking in your old magazine stacks! Try the December, 1950 issue of The Magzine Antiques for a great article on "James Tassie, The Scottish Wedgwood" by Jean Gorely. Jean is now deceased but is well-known in Wedgwood circles as the President of the Boston Wedgwood Club and author/compiler of many Wedgwood volumes. Many Wedgwood portrait medallions were made from Tassie molds and this article gives a good overview of Tassie, his life and work. This same issue has one ad featuring a black & white photo of some old Wedgwood as well as another article about a 1951 antiques forum held at Colonial Williamsburg at which Hensleigh Wedgwood was a speaker. Finding old magazines at estate sales, antiques malls and on the Internet can be a fun search in itself. Our Bibliography is a perfect tool to help you look through those tall stacks! We only have a few left, but the good news is we're working on a new, larger, annotated version, hopefully out later this year?! Well, optimistically hopefully!
Spotted in the March '05 edition of House and Garden (page 48) are some toile look plates by Robert Dawson for Wedgwood. We found them on the Wedgwood website and love them! Elements from the Willow pattern show up on some of the plates too and provide a refreshingly new look for this venerated old pattern.
George Stubbs is featured in the beautiful December, 2004 issue of The Magazine Antiques, and detail from one of his paintings graces the cover. It's a great issue with a beautifully illustrated article about Stubbs and other interesting articles, well worth the $5 US cover price. If you are a particular Stubbs fan and missed this, back issues are easily purchased (www.themagazineantiques.com).
Elle Decor for March, 2005 shows a partial place-setting of Drabware dinnerware in its column "Designer's dozen" in which Michael Boodro lists 12 things he can't live without. This is the second time in recent years I've found Wedgwood Drabware listed in this top 12 things list by famous interior designers! Martha Stewart was right, Drabware deserves to be revived. See our Featured Items - we're having a SALE on all drabware inventory in honor of Martha's getting out of jail - which is rather tongue in cheek, but Martha is a devout Wedgwood collector, using her own pieces to illustrate magazine articles and her former Martha by Mail catalogues - a great way to see somone else's collection without leaving your armchair. Go to Browse Inventory and choose our Drabware category - it's all 15% off this month.
And on the topic of sales, we have all our green Jasperware on sale in honor of the Irish through March 31st. Again, for details see NEW & FEATURED ITEMS button on that left hand dark blue bar on our homepage. AND since you've read this far there is a bonus! If you mention our newsletter, we'll take 5% more off your purchase of items already on sale, green Jasperware and Drabware! Just mention it in the comments in the order form and we'll do the rest - and THANKS for reading!
WEDGWOOD SERENDIPITY (Wherein we shall share with you fun happenings that occur when we are not even thinking about Wedgwood-Adele and I seem to have these serendipitous happenings oh so often!)
We live in St. Louis County, Missouri where there is a County Park in which is located the American Kennel Club's Dog Museum. Not being a dog person (I LOVE other peoples' dogs, don't get me wrong, I just don't want any!) I have prided myself on never having gone to this controversial Museum. However, this past week I had occasion to take a visiting veterinarian sight-seeing and this seemed the perfect venue. Lo and behold, was I embarrassed that I had never been there! Full of Old Master quality paintings with period frames, fabulous figural sterling silver chased and engraved trophies, sculpture, ceramics and many other paintings, prints and artifacts, the Museum is totally absorbing and beautifully laid out and maintained. Why, you ask, am I telling you this? Contained in the wonderful collection of the Msueum of the Dog are eight original Marguerite Kirmse drawings of American Sporting and Hunting Dogs. Signed by her, some with salutations to the original recipient, they are beautifully mounted and framed so their character can be seen. The transfers from her original prints grace two sets of Wedgwood Queen's Ware plates produced in the 1940s and 50s, which are now very collectible - and expensive when you can find them! So if you're ever in the St. Louis area please come see us and definitely don't miss The Dog Museum in Queeny Park if you are interested in the works of this well-known and well-loved artist!
That's it for today. We do hope you will let us continue to drop into your email inbox and stay! We welcome your visits to our websites for purchase or information (we're always adding new informational links) or even just a fun browse through the wonderful production of our favorite potter! HAPPY SPRING! Leslie, Matt, Kathlyn, John, Ron and all of us at Alexis Antiques and CollegePlates.com.
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http://www.alexisantiques.com/
wedgwood@alexisantiques.com
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