It went for over 20 times its estimated value. How much do you reckon it’s worth?
A cracked teapot that was initially sold for just 15 quid, ended up being sold-on for a huge price after it was put up for auction in the US of A.
The blue and white teapot turned out to be 250 years old and one of the first pieces of porcelain ever made in America, making it a valuable collectors item.
It was created by someone called John Bartlam during the 1780s and may be the only item of its kind in the world.
Described as an “important and previously unrecorded” find, ceramics specialist, Clare Durham, called the teapot a “really significant object”.
“It was made in Cain Hoy, South Carolina, by John Bartlam who had come from Staffordshire in about 1760, using what we think is probably a British recipe [for porcelain],” she told the BBC.
“This is the first time they were producing porcelain in America in the 1760s, so it’s kind of a birth-of-a-nation object. This is them sticking two fingers up at England, saying, ‘we don’t need to import your porcelain, we can make it ourselves’.”
As for the price, well, at auction it managed to fetch £460,000. Not bad that, is it?
