Davies Auctions, Lafayette, Indiana

We got up at 6:00 AM yesterday to head to Davies Auctions in Lafayette, Indiana. We had been there probably a dozen times in the past and have found their specialty tends towards "American Primitives" which in our estimate is usually a large amount of rusted and rotted things pulled out of old barns. Sure, we make fun of it, but there are plenty of folks lined up to spend high sums of money for it on a regular basis. Since we look for pottery and glass, we show up whenever they have a decent selection, which is usually once every two or three months. Yesterday they had over 35 pieces of antique Roseville Pottery and a few Rookwood pieces. They have a small snack bar with drinks and sandwiches, I recommend the simple chipped ham on a bun.

Sunflower  pot and Rozane mug at Davies Auction

Early up this nice Roseville Sunflower pattern pot came up, 4 inches tall and in nice original condition. It had the green on the bottom third rather than the more desirable blue, but certainly a nice piece.  Unfortunately for us, there was a gentleman purchaser with no apparent regard for market prices. The winning bid was $330 with the 10% buyers premium, far more than retail and well above the $225 we sold one for several months ago. The Rozane mug reflected a more sensible market sense selling for $44.

Mattew Daly Pitcher and Futura 398-6 vase

The Futura vase 398-6 was pristine, but as far as Roseville Futura is concerned, it is probably the least valuable. It is considered the best selling piece of the line and is extremely common. An identical piece sold just a few weeks ago on Ebay for $165, but our gentleman purchaser had no problem bidding it up to $230 (with premium). $230 would have been the price we would have listed one for, so at least he hit the retail on that one, but he could have gone to ebay and gotten one delivered instead for $220. The Rookwood Daly pitcher sold more reasonably for $130.

Roseville Bushberry Bookends

Although not rare, and a common late period line, we snatched up these Bushberry pattern bookends at a reasonable price. Although others may disagree, we actually prefer Autumn Brown color to the green or blue, the pattern lends itself nicely to a decoration for fall better than just about any pattern / color combination.

32 pieces of Roseville Pottery and 2 pieces of Brush-McCoy



The rest of the pieces were a really mixed bag of late period vintage Roseville Pottery. However, two things quickly became problematic. The first problem was that over two-thirds of the pieces had issues such as chips, cracks, or even broken and glued back together. This would not normally be an issue, we inspect every piece closely and only bid on those which are pristine. Unfortunately, the second problem is that they were randomly sold in groups of 3-4 pieces. This often meant paying for pieces we did not want under any circumstances as many people present did not detect the damage and bid as if they were mint. We managed to get two groups. The first group was all Zephyr Lily, a large green tray (mint), a 7 inch vase (big lip-chip) a creamer (shipped spout) and a creamer (mint). All of the money is in the tray, and while not rare they don't come around that often and are hard to keep in stock. The second lot included the white rose console with the matching frog (mint) and a small green gardenia vase (mint). Although have a hard time selling the white rose pattern, we had never come across a matched set with frog so we had to take it home. Most of the rest had damage and issues, but still went for $20-$30 per piece in lots. We would have loved the thornapple console with frog, but the frog had been broken into several pieces and glued back together.

Overall not a bad day, and we look forward to listing our new finds of  vintage and antique roseville art pottery at The Kings Fortune. Stop on by and see what you can find!