History in the Making

Beswick horse figurines come complete with a load of history behind them.  I don't know if Beswick is the oldest still-operating model horse manufacturer out there, but it must certainly be one of the oldest.

But wait -- I just said "still-operating,"  didn't I?  And Beswick is definitely not still operating.  Or is it?

It all depends on what you want to call a Beswick.

For most of their history, Beswicks were manufactured in a pottery founded in Longton, Stoke-on-Trent, England.  From 1939 to 1969  this is where the world's Beswick horses came from. 

An early Beswick horse

In 1969, the Beswick business was sold to Royal Doulton, who continued to produce a number of the old Beswick molds under the Beswick backstamp.  Prior to buying out Beswick, Royal Doulton had produced a few horse figurines from their own sculptors in the 1930s and 40s, but nothing like the range they offered after acquiring the Beswick molds.

A Royal Doulton pony

Then, between 1989 and 2002, Doulton started dropping the Beswick backstamp and substituting the Royal Doulton backstamp, while simultaneously replacing many of the older Beswick molds with new sculpts from new sculptors.  During this time the Beswick backstamp still appeared on special edition horses, like Collectors Club horses and horses commissioned by distributors such as Doug Middleweek and John Sinclair., As production of these horses wound down, and Beswick molds slowly dropped off the Royal Doulton catalogue pages, it looked like Beswick manufacturing had finally reached its end, particularly when the pottery where Beswicks had been made was sold to developers in 2003.

A Beswick Collectors Club horse (Beswick backstamp) from 1997

However, the Beswick name returned in 2005 with the John Beswick animal range.  John Beswick is Beswick in name but not, some would argue, in spirit.  Besides the fact that the John Beswick horses all come from entirely new molds, the greatest difference between John Beswicks and the older Beswicks is the fact that John Beswick horses are cast and finished overseas.

A John Beswick pony

But just as most Breyers are created by American artists even though they are produced in China, so the John Beswick horses are created in England even though they are produced in Malaysia.  John Beswick's primary sculptor, the one responsible for the look of the new John Beswick horses and for the painting of prototypes for the Malaysian workers to follow is a Brit named Richard Wawrzesta, who, I believe, was originally a sculptor of Border Fine Arts animals.

So are the Doultons, the Middleweeks, the Sinclairs, and the John Beswicks as collectable as the original Beswicks are?  Opinions differ about that.  Purists collect only the original Beswicks, and prefer the earliest examples from that factory for the delicacy of their paintwork.  Beswick brown is sort of the default colour of most Beswick horses, but the earliest browns were lightly applied, allowing more facial detailing and body shading than the later models that have nearly all of their delicate modelling obscured by a thick muddy coat of Beswick brown.

Collectors who are purists about their preferred sculptors may include Doultons in their collection as well as Beswicks, since even after the horses received the Royal Doulton backstamp, Doulton continued to offer a small range of the pieces originally sculpted by Arthur Gredington, Beswick's lead animal sculptor.  Doulton also produced a number of horses designed by Graham Tongue, Gredington's successor as Beswick's primary sculptor, and they employed a variety of the sculptors who worked under the Beswick label just prior to 1989 to design new, limited run horses specifically for the Royal Doulton line.

The John Beswicks, though, are quite unlike their predecessors, coming from a different sculpting hand and painted in a totally new style.

So are they collectible?  Well, much as we would all love to have the ability to predict what pieces, considered to be commonplace now, will become valuable collectibles in the future, only time will tell.  John Beswicks being produced now could be history in the making, or they could be tomorrow's second-hand shop junk.

For the record, I like 'em all -- the Beswicks, the Doultons, and the John Beswicks -- makes no difference to me.  If I like the horse, there's room somewhere on my shelf for it no matter whose backstamp it bears.  If I don't like it, it could come holding a great British pedigree or an exotic Malaysian passport -- it still won't get past my border.