Tea Pots???????????

Question

Any one know of a site i can go to to find out about pricing old tea pots....like where they came from, if they're worth anything, are they antiques?

Answer 1

Find out what brand it is.  Look underneath.  If it comes from anything but a real cheapo maker it will have something like "Meakin",  "Shelley", "Wedgwood" or one of the American, German or French makers under it.  It might also be "Noritake" which was a fairly high class Japanese brand.  Your teapot may have a pattern number under it.  So you will see a trademark and maybe something like X/147 which is the pattern or decoration style, or sometimes the pattern or decoration is named.      

Many brands like Meakin are not worth much even if they are 60 or 100 years old since they were made in very large numbers.

There are multiple sites devoted to collectors of china and porcelain.  They list literally thousands of different pattern and decoration styles.  Most makers only made a pattern for a few years, and often they used different decorations on the same shape of item.  

Value depends on the presence or absence of chips, even small ones, wear on the decoration especially any gold lining, current fashion, crazing of the glaze,  the original price of the item and the rarity of the decoration, pattern or maker.  Buyers frequently examine porcelain and better china with a hand lens.

For example Shelley ware tends to be expensive because it was deliberately made very thin and tends to be more fragile.  Fashion comes in too.  Clarice Clift designs have been popular for several years but when whatsername with the big TV show mentioned she collected it the prices soared.