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Belleek Collectors' Society Blarney
demitasse
cup/saucer number 606, which sold on
eBay in July of 2002 for $97.76.
My own personal Blarney demitasse cup
and saucer bought on eBay in May of
2002 for a whopping $17.
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As a follow-up to the vintage Belleek Blarney
tea cup added to the Virtual Belleek Museum in May,
2002, I am adding here for purposes of comparison the reissued
Blarney demitasse cup and saucer offered in green
tinted finish to members of the Belleek Collectors' Society
in 1986 after the original molds were located at the pottery
and new working molds were made from them.
While Belleek offered these to members of
the Belleek Collectors' Society only, and as a "limited
edition of 850 cups and saucers" (as stated in The
Belleek Collector, Volume 8, Number 2, from 1986), the
reissue soon became known by some as the "Blarney
debacle cup and saucer," and rightly so, as Belleek's
claim of only 850 cups and saucers was quickly proven, well,
an embarrassing-for-the-company bunch of blarney.
How many were actually made only Belleek
knows for sure, but word of cups and saucers arriving with
numbers above 850 quickly spread, and in the very next issue
of The Belleek Collector the company (then under
the Troughton administration) was forced to offer some sort
of explanation to its angry members as follows:
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"In Volume 8, Number 2 of The
Belleek Collector it was announced that only 850
Collectors' Society Limited Edition Blarney Cups and
Saucers would be available to Collectors. However,
some of the first Collectors who ordered this offering
received cups numbered in the 900 range. This situation
was investigated, and Jim Barkley, Director of Production
at the Pottery, was consulted. He notified us that
in actuality 1,000 Collectors' Society Limited Edition
cups and saucers were crafted. This is the number
the Pottery estimates they are required to produce
in order to successfully offer 850 [acceptable] Belleek
cups and saucers. Due to kiln loss, quality control
inspection, and damage in transit from Ireland to
New Jersey, approximately 150 of these cups and saucers
are lost.
"So some Collectors will receive
pieces from this Blarney [limited] Edition numbered
well into the 900s. This edition was in fact limited
to 850 good sets. Under no circumstances should anyone
receive a Blarney Cup and Saucer numbered over 999.
If you do, we want to know about it!
"We hope this explanation will
clear up any misunderstanding—Be assured that
in the future, we will have our numbers straight
when giving details on these Limited Editions. To
minimize any confusion, we'll simply provide Collectors
with both figures: the number crafted and the final
number available in the edition."
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The Blarney demitasse cup and saucer
retailed for USD $50 for the pair. The cup measures 1.75
inches tall and the saucer is 4.25 inches in diameter. The
Belleek Collector stated that the marks for this set
would be done in "crimson" (see image at left).
So popular was the Blarney demitasse
set that Belleek later issued a limited edition retail version
with an antique gold stamp (see image at left), apparently
never thinking to protect the value of the original Collectors'
Society purchasers' sets by offering the new batch in at
least a different color. As the number on my own set is
1541, it's safe to say that with the original batch of 850
there were probably at least 2,500 sets sold.
The Blarney demitasse cup and saucer
set typically sells for about $40 on eBay in 2002, though
it's gone for as little as $17 or as high as $97.76 during
the same year—the value simply dependent on who is
in the market that week.
Comparison of Belleek Neptune
demitasse and Blarney demitasse from the same era.
To Belleek's
credit, the Blarney demitasse is slightly thinner
than the contemporary Neptune piece, and
more in keeping with the original thickness envisioned for
the design when new.
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