Garden Antiques

coalbrookdale seat 

TV gardening experts have not only helped increase business for garden centers, they've also created a boom in sales of gardening antiques. And the last five years interest in gardening collectibles has risen dramatically, but there really is something for everyone.



 The area is as diverse in price as it is in subject matter, with simple ephemera like seed packets costing just a few pounds, antique garden spades £10- £50, but carved stone statues in the hundreds of thousands .





      

vintage urns

While there are some dedicated collectors of gardening ephemera and equipment, most garden antiques are bought to adorn gardens so fashion and the media have a big impact.






Take stone water troughs, for example. Just ten years ago, these cumbersome pieces of farm equipment were relatively easy to come by and often used simply as planters.


Then 'Gardeners' World' ran a feature showing how to use a trough as a water feature. And now  most people want to buy them with an old water pump to create a water feature. The result is that supplies are getting harder to track down.

staddle stones

What fetches the big money
Carved stone - fountains, sundials, birdbaths, statues and even church gargoyles. Good examples of these are highly sought after and the problem is that, yet  again, the supply is beginning to dry up. There are only so many big country houses left to strip, or churches to close. At the lower end of this market staddle stones (or mushroom stones) demonstrate how things have taken off. In the last ten years these have more than doubled in price, rising from around £250 each to about £500.

stone troughs

Carved stone is by its nature a one-off, but even the more mass-produced items such as 19th century wrought-iron seats are fetching big money. "Again, people feel they'll get their money back better if they go for rarity and good condition,.




Collectibles Coach