Mould no: JBC48
Baseplate: John Beswick, England
Dimensions: 6 cm in height 18 cm in width
Here is a New addition to the Beswick family of collectables, the “John Beswick, England” brand is active with the production of new collectable ceramics , and these pieces will most certainly become more desirable, as time passes.
Designed By: David Hand
Series: Animaland.
Produced: 1946-1950
Baseplate: Gold Backstamp – Copyright By GB Animation LTD
Dimensions: Height 10cm Width 5cm
Weight: 62 grams
This particular Beswick Cats piece is from the David Hands Animal Land Felia, is quite a rare piece, and you will have difficulty finding it anywhere for sale.
David Dodd Hand (January 23, 1900 – October 11, 1986) was an animator and animation film maker best known for his work at Walt Disney Productions. Hand worked on numerous Disney shorts during the 1930s, eventually becoming supervising director on the animated features Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Bambi.
He joined the Disney studio in 1930, and by 1932 he was regarded as one of Disney’s top animators as well as having become a close friend of Walt Disney.
Hand went to England and established Gaumont British Animation at Moor Hall in 1946 to produce the Animaland cartoon series.
I’m not having much luck finding this piece for sale anywhere in Australia.
Beswick Cats figurines come in a large variety of sizes mostly created from their original pottery spanning more than one hundred years.
Imagine, how many figurines were created during that period of time.
As with quite a few small companies, they get taken over by larger ones and sometimes get shelved, so that the parent company can continue with the lions share of the market. Royal Doulton in 1969 purchased the assets of the Beswick Pottery and to their credit, they kept it going, right up until 1989, and then ceased all production. with no more cat figurines being manufactured.
Then in 1998 thanks to plenty of marketplace pressure they re-introducing the product range, and for a short time period, production was under way once more. Then in 2002 once again, all production was halted.
The Beswick brand appeared as if it might be gone forever, this genuinely appeared to be the end of the line for the cat figurines that came with the famous Beswick Underplate. simply because Royal Doulton sold the Gold Street works to property developers.
However, happily the tale doesn’t end there, owing to a Yorkshire company that in 2008, (John Sinclair (Sheffield) Ltd), to be precise.
The Beswick Cat Figurines are yet again back in production not to mention available to buy at acceptable prices, although company are generally concentrating for the most part on cats and dogs,
