This Royal Doulton market to all contrary opinions is alive and well. The 9th edition of Royal Doulton Figurines, a Charlton Standard Catalogue, will reinforce this statement many times over. The good news, over 90% of the prices are higher in this edition over the last, a handful are unchanged, with a small number in negative territory. The downward price trend started in 2000 with stock markets falling on difficult times, taking the edge off collector spending. Then came e-Bay, the on-line auction company. The number of items appearing in auction daily rose quickly, and by 2001 the number had reached nearly 4,000, that converted to a yearly basis is almost 1,500,000 items. The great magnitude of items, with the take-whatever-you-can-get attitude of the seller weighed on the market. By the end of 2003 business conditions have improved with dealers and collectors alike becoming acclimatized to on-line auctions. After all, they are just auctions, and auctions offer to all the opportunity to buy at wholesale and even at times find a bargain. By December 2003, the number of Royal Doulton items offered daily on e-Bay rose to 8,200, a 200% increase of January 2001. Thousands of new participants can only mean growth in the years ahead.
Catalogue prices are suggested retail prices, they are prices a collector may expect to pay, possibly with a small discount, in a retail environment.
The 9th edition has 552 pages, 520 include the introduction, listings, collecting by series, and an alphabetical index, then 32 colour pages, giving the collector a complete reference to Royal Doulton figurines.
A new addition to the catalogue is the In Vogue series of Pretty Ladies dressed in black evening gowns. The Breast Cancer Charity figurine for research support continued this year with thirteen Canadian celebrities signing either a Dawn or Spring Morning figure. The Nostalgia series added three new figures, bringing the total to nine in the series. The M Series has been revived with the addition of ten new miniature Pretty Ladies. A very limited edition, only 200 of each new colourway, for Bathing Beauty, Brighton Belle, Summer’s Darling and Taking the Waters, was issued. The new Figure of the Year, the Collectors Club, and Event Figures are all included. The commissioned figures of Great Universal Stores, and Compton & Woodhouse, plus other mail order houses in the United Kingdom are extremely difficult to find in North America. The 9th edition is available from your local Royal Doulton dealer, book stores, on-line book stores such as Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and Barnes&Noble.com or directly from the Charlton Press. If ordering from the Charlton Press please include $5.00 postage and handling.
