Friday at Auction Finds is Readers’ Questions day. I try to guide readers to resources to help them determine the value of the items they own. I’m not able to appraise their treasures, but I can do some preliminary research to get them started.
Here are this week’s questions:
Question:
I have a piece of Delft that was made in Taiwan by Holland Floral. It also says “Handpainted Delft Blauw.” Is there a story there?
Answer:
Delft Blauw, as one website noted, is not a brand name just the style and look of the pottery – cobalt blue on a white background. Some legitimate and authentic Delft pieces also carry the name. But you won’t likely find the good stuff made in Taiwan.
At auctions, flea markets, roadside stands and antique stores, I’ve come across blue Delft pottery as both authentic and souvenir pieces. I have never seen any of them with a Taiwan label and suspect that yours is a copy. At auction, I don’t usually bother with anything that says “Made in Taiwan” because I know it’s not the real thing.
True Delft pottery, as I noted in a blog post two years ago, was first produced by factories in Delft, Holland, in the 17th century. They were hand-painted earthenware pieces designed by skilled craftspeople. European porcelain-makers began producing the pottery during the mid-19th century and now only a few factories still product it, some in other parts of the Netherlands.
I’ve also found Delft pottery in earth-tones made by the Royal Delft (De Porceleyne Fles) factory. It was one of the original makers of Delft pottery, dating back to 1653, and is the only one still using the early techniques of pottery-making.
Before you buy Delft, you should know what markings to look for on the bottom of the piece to determine if it’s real. The ones I’ve bought had these markings: apothecary jar, initials JT and the word Delft. This website offered some other tips on distinguishing between the real and the fake.
If it doesn’t matter if the piece is official or not, just buy what you like. I bought a pair of beautiful dangling earrings in Delft Blue at a flea market once. I doubt that they were authentic, but I loved them.
Question:
I was wondering if you could help me with the value of a Coca Cola item that I have. It’s a soda machine front with Dale Earnhardt and Dale Jr. Uncut direct from the factory, never on a machine. It has the plastic on it with all the numbers and info. I can’t find any on eBay to even get an idea of the value.
Answer:
This question came to me some time ago, and the reader may have had difficulty finding the item online because he was using the wrong keywords. I tried the words “Dale Earnhardt vending machine front,” and came up with several of the plastic covers selling on retail sites via Google and on eBay. Some of the fronts bore a life-size photo of Nascar star Dale Earnhardt Sr. alone and others were of him and his son.
One was listed on a racing site for $1,500, but there were no takers. In eBay auctions, I found two: One got 10 bids that went as high as $555, but the buyer wanted $1,500 so the bids were rejected. Another sold for $299.
Like anything, the fronts were worth what someone was willing to pay for them at a given time.
Checking recently, I found many of them for sale on everything from craigslist to retail sites I hadn’t heard of. A lot of two vending fronts of Earnhardt and Nascar driver Jeff Burton (with some damage) sold for $40 at an auction last year. A month ago, craigslist sellers in different states were asking $100 to $1,495 for Earnhardt.
On eBay, no one was interested in paying $525 for Earnhardt solo, but one bidder paid $125 for father and son. Another cover of the two of them – rare, the seller said – got three bids for a winning price of $28.
Several sellers kept calling the fronts “rare,” including a blogger on the official Coke website, but they didn’t seem too rare to me. A Google search turned up page after page of them, along with a handful on eBay. I’m always leery of anyone saying something is rare, because invariably it is not. The seller is assuming that you won’t take the time to research your item.
Several of the sales listings mentioned that the fronts were from 1999 and 2000. When Earnhardt died on the final lap of the Daytona 500 in 2001, his face was on the front cover of Coke vending machines across the country as part of a million-dollar ad campaign, according to a story in the Washington Post. Fans began removing the photos from the machines – as souvenirs, no doubt – and at least one stole an entire machine from a towing truck.
Some fans even set up shrines in front of the machines in Earnhardt’s memory.
These usually sell for 100 to 150 if not used on a machine and again depends on how bad someone wants one. I have a friend that buys them when he can find them anywhere from 50 to 100 dollars.
I have a coke plastic cover with dale sr. and dale jr and it is a really big dale sr. Has his arm around his son in the big picture, and i was wondering how much it was worth cause i can’t find one on the internet that’s anything like it.
Hi, Jeannie, it’s very difficult to put a value on an item if you can’t find one that’s been sold. Sometimes you have to find items that are closely related to yours. My blog post mentions at least one cover with both of the Earnhardts that sold for $125 in 2012 on eBay. Did you check eBay? If you can find one that recently sold on the site, that’s the likely current value of yours, even if it’s not an exact match. If you can’t find one, you may have to check the site from time to time. Be sure to check eBay’s “Completed Listings” under the Advanced Search link to get a list of sold prices, not asking prices. You can also try to find auction houses in your area (via auctionzip.com), and from their websites find out if they have free appraisal days and take your cover (or a photo) there. There are also auction houses that specialize in sports memorabilia. You can find them on the web by Googling “sports memorabilia and auctions.” Check their websites, too.