paul rice at adam partridge auctions

I agree - I wonder if Paul insisted on setting the prices. Auctioneers tend to set them low to entice people in not scare them away.

22 Crawford St. wrote:I agree - I wonder if Paul insisted on setting the prices. Auctioneers tend to set them low to entice people in not scare them away.

What I do know is that Adam Partridge, in line with most auction houses, would give favourable rates and be flexible with reserves if they were negotiating to secure a major collection. Whatever the content, this would be such a collection. Therefore my bet is that you are correct about Paul setting the prices.

Regarding your other point about estimates, I can only comment on the Trevor Coldrey's lots that have appeared in and are due to appear in Sworder's Modern design Sale this July. He just needs and wants to get rid of them and agreed to their reserve rather than none (I assume that it doesn't become worth their while to sell below a certain figure). They also set the estimates when they could have set them lower, if they had wished to tempt buyers but they chose not to.

As a rule of thumb, the lower end of auction estimates generally is the reserve. However, at Sworder's that isn't always the case.

I do not think you want to underestimate the power of star quality. Studio would call it auction fever. But this auction has a lot of star items which you would actually find it very difficult to purchase elsewhere. Often when you have single owner collections like this with excellent provenance, prices go higher than usual. I have seen in several auctions where there was a lot of stuff I liked, but prices went higher than my reach!
Adam Partridge is a canny auctioneers with a sharp eye on publicity. In International Market terms the studio pottery market is still an underdeveloped one. I would not be at all surprised if auction fever dragged the more prosaic stuff - and this auction is loaded with it!- up to higher prices,
Anyways, its all good fun to watch!

Depends if Rice gets a two page spread in one of the broadsheets like other single owner collections

I see that partridge is billing this auction as 'selected' items from the large collection of Paul Rice but i wonder if 'selected' means a Tower dish with restoration, a Lucie Rie pot with cracks and restoration and other pieces with chips, mediocre items of Pleydell - Bouverie and janet leach, the list goes on. There are some good pieces but too few.

I must admit to thinking to myself. I would love to see what he kept!
              What you would term a 'Clear Out' sale. I think lots of us started collecting studio pottery because it was cheap, and readily available in Boot Sales. Then one might have meandered down various byways Chelsea, Briglin etc, or buy multi lots at auction. So we end up with a significant number of low value pieces, bought for cheapo prices. You can try selling it on Ebay, but that is a laborious job for low value stuff. Boot sales are similar, and you get peanuts. So you  have a shed + Loft+ Garage full of boxes stacked high, or you give it away.
          So this is Paul Rice's version of that clear out give away! It helps of course that Adam Partridge is none too sniffy in what  studio pottery price range he sells. His bi-annual Studio pottery sales are often padded out with the likes of the 'more ordinary' stuff that you see in the Paul Rice sale. Moreover, he does seem to sell a good deal of it.
              So this does somewhat resemble his normal studio sales. 400+ Lot all day sales that last 7 hours non-stop. With a wide range of stuff with something for everybody. Moreover, the novice general public often really do get carried away with auction fever at these sort of sales!   They are very user friendly and slick, with none of the stuffier attitudes you sometimes get from the more toffee nosed 'Fine Art' salerooms.

philpot wrote:I must admit to thinking to myself. I would love to see what he kept!

As I said earlier, from experience even when visiting him he wasn't forthcoming in what serious pieces he had in stock and I tended to get the impression that the talk was more than the reality. As he has put John Ward pieces in this sale, I suspect that he might not have kept much.

Going back a few years, he contacted me to ask if I had any Colin Pearson pieces for sale as he had someone interested. At the time I did have and he did eventually buy a piece but only because he could turn it over quickly. He has never appeared to want to have large, expensive pieces in stock for a long period.

Anyone who gets carried away with auction fever and bids £40 for a Friars Aylesford Pottery jug +commission +postage is going to have a nasty hangover in the morning

Circa £20 the going rate on Ebay. But then you can go right through the sale like that, with hopelessly optimistic estimates. The Crowan, Barbara Cass, Dennis Lucas....and on.
            The Lucie Rie that Croker mentions.  26.5 cms with three restored cracks Big but not even the best of her work. £12,000- £18,000 estimate.....Optimistic!
           But then, we will see on July 31. Maybe we will all be proved wrong

Nah, Mr Partridge not going the break his hammer on the day of the auction. Many unsold lots methinks. He won't see a single one of the Briglin lots they are all just prosaic and overpriced. I predict lot after lot unsold.

22 Crawford St. wrote:Nah, Mr Partridge not going the break his hammer on the day of the auction. Many unsold lots methinks. He won't see a single one of the Briglin lots they are all just prosaic and overpriced. I predict lot after lot unsold.  

Agreed. I suspect he'll rattle his way though and pretend to take bids "from the back of the room" and they'll turn up again in the next couple of auctions as job lots at £5 a lot.

My oh my. We are in Crystal Ball Land!

Strange things happen at auctions.

However, if we compare pots in this auction to those from Trevor Coldrey's collection that I have been helping him dispose of then a significant number would have come home with me to be sold for the Adopt a Potter Charity for a suggested donation. I am not taking a commission but am suggesting the donation, which is usually £5 or £10 but never more than £20. Some are by lesser names or unknowns but people have been getting pots by Phil Rogers, Mike Dodd, Ruthanne Tudball, Nic Collins, Lisa Hammond for a fiver or a tenner.

Wouldn’t mind some Phil Rogers pots for tenner

There is one piece of his left but it's not worth the journey.

Part of an email that Paul sent to his customers, alive & dead, this week........

"I promised my family that I would gradually get my collection down to a more manageable level - not an easy task as I have over 1500 pots. To help with this, I have put approximately 450 pots in the capable hands of Jason Wood at the auctioneers, Adam Partridge."

We might think it fun to be left 1500 (insert 'another' for Naomi) pots but most people would be completely horrified.

I spent the past 2 days sorting out the pottery I have stored in my garage, the mice had been in several boxes so I had to unwrap, wash, re-wrap, and re-box 1250+ pots
Now they are in sealed heavy-duty plastic boxes that no mouse could ever chew

It seems that those hoarding clearance specialists on TV would have a fair amount of Potty customers!

studio-pots wrote:Part of an email that Paul sent to his customers, alive & dead, this week........

"I promised my family that I would gradually get my collection down to a more manageable level - not an easy task as I have over 1500 pots. To help with this, I have put approximately 450 pots in the capable hands of Jason Wood at the auctioneers, Adam Partridge."

Not a very wise move perhaps. Basically he seems to be saying that he is selling the crap ends of his collection, with some high spots thrown in to make it look more interesting. Not exactly encouraging a Razzamatazz, Whoopee excitement atmosphere for the auction is it.

That was my view too, philpot.

1500 pots amazing, i don't understand this type of hoarding but then i am not psychiatrist ,this is not collecting just accumulating, twice as many pots as the Victoria and Albert museum !!.

V&A has something like 40k pots (80k including glass and ceramics total)

Thank you Crawford St but i was referring to their studio pot collection.

The V&A has less than 1000 studio pots? Several of us have more than that in the loft!