I started dealing in Goss Crested China at the age of 21 in 1970. At that stage there was no demand for Goss China. Junk shop shelves were groaning with hundreds of unsold pieces which had been gathering dust for years and proper antique shops looked down their noses on Goss China and would not dream of having pieces in their shops.
I founded Goss and Crested China Ltd with my former wife Lynda in 1975 and we started to publish a monthly catalogue. At this time small Goss China pieces were selling for £1.50 - £2 each. As there was no market for Goss China I realised I had to create a demand.
This involved advertising in Exchange & Mart every week, manning John Magee’s Goss china shop in the Strand for a year. Then having my own Goss shop in Brewer Street just of Regent Street for a year, and finally, a move to Murray Road, Horndean and the establishment of proper premises and a showroom.
I published my first price guide in 1978 and this has now gone through six editions. Over this period I have brought and sold several millions of pounds worth of heraldic china and many collectors have spent large sums of money with me. I have always considered that I have a duty to look after their investment and try to slowly move the market upwards with the publication of each Price Guide and in the monthly catalogues and in showroom prices.
This steady rise in prices carried on through 1993 when I published an investment edition of the Goss and Crested China Club monthly catalogue of heraldic china with tables to show a steady increase in prices of between 140% and 360% over the preceding 15 years. A similar price rise occurred in crested china. I then forecast World War One china would maintain its position as the single most popular theme followed by animals, buildings, figures and comic novelty items.
But then when I divorced Lynda in May 2001 and gave her Goss and Crested China Ltd as part of the settlement. This, with hindsight, co-incided with the peak in the market.
I had not forecast this peak, and I do not believe anyone else did either, but with the rise of eBay making easy sales available to all, young people not buying antique furniture like their parents used to but instead going to the newly opened Ikea and buying modern furniture, and people living in smaller houses and flats requiring small and not large pieces to collect, this was to change the market in Goss and crested china and in all antiques.
The outcome was that all types of common antiques have gone down in price by some 50-90% whilst the rarest items have increased. Some into the stratosphere, but it has not only happened to Goss and crested china, this has happened right across the antique field, indeed the market is unpredictable. For example, recently 1200 pieces of Goss China were sold at auction in Wiltshire in two lots. One lot of 600 made £40 the other lot made £45, this is the lowest price I have ever seen in my 45 years of dealing. And at the other end of the scale the naval badge of HMS Benbow on a small piece of Goss made £1000 on eBay, which is the stratosphere.
On eBay now, and at any one time, are listed several thousand pieces of Goss and Crested China, One can now sell easily. All you need is a computer and the ability to pack a parcel. And judging by the standard of any eBay entries, many have some difficulty in so doing. So is the value of Goss China the eBay price realised?
I have thought about this long and hard for several months and I am of the opinion that eBay represents the price which something will sell for at one given moment in time.
The sale price can go extremely high as long as more than one person wants the piece and it can sell for peanuts if only one person wants it but neither of those situations is the market price. So whilst there are hundreds if not thousands of Goss smalls that sell or don’t sell at 99p this is only because nobody wants them on that date and remember, all auctions are wholesale not retail, although this distinction has now become blurred.
We shall be establishing a retail price for every piece as I used to do many years ago.
The last edition of the Price Guide was published in 2000 and the prices are out of date but some pieces have gone up and some have gone down. How I would publish a price guide at present and at what level prices should be? This one of my plans for the future, but if I am to establish the Goss China market again on a sound footing and to try and protect those who have purchased from me in the past and in the future, this is what I must do.
I do not think anybody else is prepared to devote the time to do so but I am. The company used to maintain what I called master price guides which recorded the market price of every piece. Changes would be made to these guides everyday according to supply and demand. We are starting to compile up to date price guides once again.
One area of Goss china collecting which has not collapsed in the same way as Goss china itself is arms and decorations. Unrecorded transfer printed views now fetch around £100 on eBay and new decorations still command substantial premium. I expect this to continue.
I have thought long and hard about the effect eBay has had on the market. Now anyone anywhere in the world can list Goss and crested china for sale. It has probably been in their family for years if not decades and stands them in at nothing and any price they receive will be welcome. But this is not the market price this is the wholesale price, the knock out price achieved at one moment in time. I only have to look at the success of the Goss Collectors Club auction to see prices at a more realistic level.
The other point about eBay is that not every item is for sale all the time. If you want a certain piece it may not appear on eBay, although if it does then the likelihood is you can buy the piece inexpensively.
In my early years of dealing, people would tell me about shops and collectors with tea chests full of Goss china, upstairs or in the attic. I did actually find one of these shops in Micheldever Station near Winchester. I visited the shop and the owner brought down three tea chests of Goss and crested china, we unpacked them, priced them, packed them up again and I bought all three tea chests. This has only ever happened once.
I am now thinking of packing up tea chests of crested china myself at 99p from eBay to give to my grandchildren for an investment. For at this price they are far cheaper than William H Goss sold them originally and there was of course a great deal of craftsmanship in the manufacture of every piece.
So what is my forecast for the future value of Goss and crested china?
I have to say I do not know, but I am going to try to re-establish a sober market and if I can expand the customer base sufficiently we will be able to do so. I really cannot see the value of Goss china going down so it will either stay the same or go up.
In the newly opened showroom, we have priced pieces at the level we think the market is at or should be at. This is the basis for our planned revival of the Goss and crested china market.
Nicholas J. Pine.