My Reproductions.

I have to date made reproductions of several models as well as created my own original red letter box. In fact I started with the letter box as I thought it was a nice item that matched the cottage collection when displayed, I’m sure that my father would have eventually made one, but perhaps it was not possible in clay. He produced 3 different types of tree, a typical red phone box and a market cross, the numbers of each item produced is unknown but certainly the phone box is the most commonly seen. I made exact copies of the trees, although the bases are different, and I re-modelled the market cross. This item was hard to produce in clay as it was touch and go if it would stay straight during firing in the kiln.

My first ‘cottage’ project was to reproduce the “Omega House”, #44 in the cottage collection,  the last and rarest of all models in the series. I have the original ‘master’ that the working moulds were produced from and had to develop the whole process to recreate it. That is the most fun part for me.

Next I worked on the “Plinth Model”. This worked out well, and it was fun to continue to develop the reproduction methods .

My Reproduction and an Original
My Reproduction and an Original

I then wanted to reproduce a model that came to light that I had not seen before, a cottage with two bay windows. Thanks to the help of William Cowley, who sent me his own model, I was able to reproduce this cottage.

 

My Reproduction and an Original
My Reproduction and an Original

I have also made a reproduction of two of the cottages in the French/Danish series of 6 cottages.

My Reproduction and an original
Reproduction Britany Model with an Original.
Reproduction alongside and Original
Reproduction alongside and Original

I was in such a rush to send this model to my friend that I failed to get any serious photos !

You can see that there is another of my reproductions on the right of the photo and this shows the base of that model. Although the base is  unseen I wanted to make them as close as possible to the original pottery item so I created a method to make the bases with the slip casting hole, although it is not really necessary to the actual production of my models.

(also , in the background is my bank statement !!!) Sorry trees !!

One of my favourite items is a tea towel that I designed and had produced, I think that they look really good, and am very happy with them. To my wife’s concern I still have several hundred left !

There was, of course, a certain trepidation with making reproductions of my fathers work, I did it as a personal project linked to my hobby and then realised that perhaps people would like to have one if they did not have their own original one and not a great chance of actually getting one.  I do not believe that the fact that I have made reproductions affects the prices of the original items, I would gladly pay whatever it took, within my limits, to get an original even if I had one that was a reproduction.

I do have future plans for other models, it may happen or not, depending on factors such as enthusiasm and/or time, eyesight etc.!

I would also be very happy indeed to do repairs of broken models, if it were possible. By the way, the money that I do get for items goes straight back into the projects I have, sadly I still have to keep my day job !!