The Perils of Posting 2

Earlier this month I decided to act on a liking I had for a specific WGP vase - Scheurich's 517-30 (the version with a bagel top) - and collect as many of them as possible (a kind of collection within a collection).



The problem is that collecting a specific vase type is not an easy thing - that is without going to eBay. So I went to eBay and bid on a handful of them. And won three. Bood news me. That is until the first one turned up in a dozen or more large pieces and a whole bunch of tiny little (sharp) shards.



Couple of days later another arrived. This time incredibly well packed, including inside the vase and everything was intact (it was in a box with two other vases) and so the score for the shape went to 1-1.



So everything came down to the final vase. And unfortunately, as you can see in the picture below, the news was not good.







I think I'm going to give up on having vases of this shape sent by post - the odds don't seem to be in my favour.



Okay, to be honest I've pretty much given up on having any vases posted, barring the couple of dealers I've mentioned before in Germany and the Netherlands who go for mega-sized packaging.

Weekend Hunting Success

Okay, I know it's not the weekend. It's just taken me two days to get around to posting this entry. I did intend it to be more up to date than this but hey, there's probably no one reading this so it probably doesn't matter.

The weekend arrived, and with it more opportunities to go hunting German Pottery. Well I was pretty successful as the photo below will show.

Between a charity shop in Shirley, Solihull, an antiques centre near Stratford-upon-Avon, a car boot sale in Gotham, Nottingham and an antiques centre in Breedon, Derbyshire I managed to acquire seven new items for my collection, including a 1950s Marzi & Remy vase (on the right), three more Scheurichs and a Dümler & Breiden in the 150s design my wife likes.

Happy Days.

Hope next weekend can be as successful - I will be picking up an eBay auction win so I'll have a head start.

Hero of the Day 2

Earlier today I posted a short entry about a Scheurich vase (517-30) that had arrived in pieces. Well I contacted the eBay seller (ilovefluffy*2010) and have received a full refund with no quibbles.



Absolutely top marks! So if you see an auction on eBay with this seller let me tell you, you have absolutely no worries in dealing with this seller. Go check out her stuff



http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/ilovefluffy*2010

First Heartbreak - the perils of posting

Since I started collecting German pottery I have bought several lots from eBay. For the most part I prefer not to have items posted, I stick to lots within easy collection distance, or from one or two dealers I've come to trust in Germany or the Netherlands - see this earlier post for an example.



http://thelavagiant.blogspot.com/2011/09/hero-of-week.html



But I have a soft spot for some shapes and take a chance from time to time on postage. One such shape is Scheurich's Cylindrical vases 517-30. So I browsed, saw and purchased. And then sat back waiting and hoping.



Alas, it was to prove the first of my eBay purchases to not survive the trip. This is what I found within the package.








Ah well, time to contact the seller...




..and then I'll go back to my old preference for as little postage as possible. Last couple I've won are within 25 kilometres so I will collect. One of which is an absolute lump of a vase - I'll post more later.

Lichfield Aniques Centre

I'm about to give away another source - I know, silly if I think about it as someone else may go there and buy the one's I didn't get. But I thought it worth mentioning this antiques centre as they had one or two vases (I'm deliberately understating things). I found three I wanted and got talking with the people manning the desk - which lead to more expenditure.



They mentioned one of the dealers there had a number of other vases and kindly (and for me, expensively) telephoned her. After about fifteen minutes the dealer, Shirley by name (trading under the banner "Frankly Fabulous Finds"), arrived complete with three crates of German pottery. So I just had to choose another five from her.



The image below are the eight vases mentioned, plus another we found in a charity shop in Lichfield, plus a stein. Yeah, I rather like steins as well.







And so, of we tootled. And that was that. Well of course it wasn't. From virtually the moment we started on our way back home we were talking about a Schmider cat shaped vase we had not purchased.



And so given the fact we had the day off work yesterday we headed back to pick it up - as well as its obligatory travelling companion - vases don't like to travel alone.



So here they are.






This centre will get more visits from me I'm sure.

Hero of the Week

Possibly like most collectors of German Pottery I prowl eBay. I generally keep my bidding to sellers nearby - so I can collect in person rather than risk the items being damaged in postage.



But there are some exceptions. Aidan and Emma in Glossop are two - although I like to visit them anyway as it's a really pleasant drive and they're great people - and of course the fact that there's always something else there that might tempt me.



Other exceptions are a handful of dealers I've had the great pleasure to come across who all hail from Germany or the Netherlands. I'll no doubt talk about some of the others in future times but this week's (or in truth last week's) hero is a German eBay dealer who goes by the name (eBay name anyway) of Annee6706.



Here's a link to her shop - although in giving this link out I realise it might result in you outbidding me on future lots.



http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/annee6706&ssPageName=STRK:MEFSX:SELLERID&_trksid=p3984.m1543.l2533



Over the past few weeks I've won seven lots she's listed. After the first coupld she contacted me to let me know some of the vagaries of the German postal system and that I could save a deal of money on postage if I waited until my lots filled a large box - she gave me the size but I didn;t really pay much attention to it.



I'm glad I didn't because at the end of last week the box that arrived shicked the hell out of me. My shipment of pottery arrived in a 70cm x 40cm x 50cm heavy duty cardboard . And in this monstrous box were six German vases and an Italian Ceramic Wall Plaque. Picture's below.








And Anne had packaged these so wonderfully well, there was no chance (ok nothing's totally without risk) that these would have been damaged. Anne double boxes vases. Each vase bubble-wrapped in smaller cardboard boxes then placed, with further padding, inside a larger heavy duty box.



Only problem it left me is dealing with the recycling. Still a small proce to pay for getting such wonderful items.

The blog starts here

To start of with I'm going to put your minds at rest that you're in the right place...



Scheurich

Carstens

Bay Keramik

Dümler & Breiden

Roth

Ruscha



Yeah - FAT LAVA in other word, West German Pottery if you like (although both terms are not entirely accurate).



I kind of figured I should do this - more like figured it was inevitable really. Until the start of this year I write short stories, articles and book and movie reviews for a number of magazines - all science fiction and horror and maybe of little interest to anyone to anyone who might browse accros this blog anyway. In case you do here's the link



http://ielester.blogspot.com/



Well I gave up writing, maybe temporarily, maybe permanently early this year and started to collect German Pottery.



It started accidentally. I bought a vase in February just because it was the right size and right colour to balance a vase my in-laws had bought in Scotland many years ago. And it looked perfect.



It also had some numbers on the bottom, 517-30, and W.Germany. That made me curious. I wanted to know what it was all about. What the numbers meant. I should have known it was dangerous. After all I've lived in this head of mine for over four decades and I know what I'm like. I collect things.



And all because of that one missing space on the shelf I now collect German pottery. And I research German Pottery. Yes I'm that sad.



So the obvious next step of someone who used to write but now doesn't and who collects Fat Lava is to write about it. Even if no one actually reads it.



Oh, and the Giant in the title refers to my height. I'm over two metres tall. Doesn't make me to greatest collector of German pottery, or the most prolific, or the most knowledgable on the subject. But I might be one of the tallest. I'll take that.



And just so you don't get too bored. Here's a picture of one of my vases...