Some recent Canal ephemera at auction.

The sale rooms have been quiet of late but readers of this blog may find the following few items of interest.

Engraved glass inscribed ‘Success to the canal’  c1800.
Standing at 12cm high this piece of commemorative glass ware showed signs of age with a few chips round the base but was in generally good order. A rare survivor it was amazing that this item was given away for just £12. What a buy!!!

Measham tea pots come and go and are never hard to find. The example above fetched just over £100 which seems to be about average.

Not so with the double spouted teapot shown above and dated 1893 which fetched £1,019 recently showing that rarity is one of the key influences on prices. Strangely enough another one of these ‘double spouters’ was auctioned at almost the same time last year (see my Nov 2011 post) together with two other rare items - a chamber pot and a vase.

Greetings postcard from Severn & Canal Co Xmas 1932.
Apologies for the poor reproduction of the  card above. It shows a fleet of the canal companies boats being towed by tug on the River Severn and is a very rare example of a Canal postcard issued by a carrying company. Auctioned for £30.

 ‘Over There. A story of Canal Life’  An extremely rare Victorian Moral Tale from 1889 .        
There have been quite a few rare books on E Bay recently  and the above is probably one of the hardest of all the Victorian Moral Tales to acquire.I have no idea why this should be so but a small print run could be the answer. Of course non of these little books are easy to find now and a complete collection could take a few years to form. This particular example is for auction on E Bay at the time of writing and is exceptionally rare in my experience.