Friday 6 August 2010

Twins

I was dead cuffed with the little vase, won on eBay, posted below.  I'd not seen the pattern before, or not that I could remember at least, so I thought it must be quite a rarity.  Then, within a week, another one came up as a buy-it-now item, same shape, pattern, and identical stamp and decorators mark for Ethel Barrett, only from a different seller.  So I had to buy-it, even though for a bit more than the first one cost.
I think sometimes eBay works like that - seeing an item on there, I guess, may sometimes prompt someone else to sell one they own themselves.  Things do seem to clump together sometimes and it seems that the kind of Poole for sale on eBay now, is different to what was there when I first started looking and collecting in the mid-1990's.   Back then, for example, there seemed to be endless amounts of 1980's calypso vases in pastel glazes.  I even brought one of them!  Generally, I think there are far more good and even top quality pots for sale these days and I kind of think, that some of the pots that were for sale back then, have now become so common place that no one wants to buy or list them any-more.  Or maybe its just that I'm blind to them.
I read somewhere on-line too, that one effect of eBay is to make the genuinely rare appear much more commonplace (and it may, in that way, deflate prices), but I'm sure that eBay is capable of throwing up all sorts of strange coincidences. Maybe when your dealing with such a mass phenomena, statistics go a bit weird, like the laws of physics do when you get down to the quantum level.  
Well, this isn't a philosophy blog, and I'm sure both these vases are a bit of a rarity anyway.  I'm just hoping I don't see another one  for many years to come.  I've taken a photo of the two side-by-side - as they do look nice together.  

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