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It
seems that the truth about these much sought-after pigs is
possibly getting a little clearer and the up to date facts
are set out below.
But
refrain from too much excitement because the problem now is
that we have no idea who made them!! It has always been understood,
and probably believed by most people, that the Gold Woodys
were made by Wade.
If fact Wade thought they were!
Over the years Wade must have rejected quite a few Gold Woodys
on the simple basis that they didn’t have a ‘Wade
England’ backstamp. |
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It
does seem strange that something so potentially valuable should
have such a discredited history. The Gold Woodys, all 25 of
them, have been argued about, copied, fraudulently sold and
wrongly attributed to many different potteries! |
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WADE
HAVE NOW TOLD US . . . .
“… the belief is that Wade did manufacture some
gold Woodys but these would have the Wade stamp on the base,
it appears that the ones used for the competition with the
gold decal on may have been issued by Sunshine or the other
pottery company the bank used for their promotion. .......
the truth of the matter is that no firm records were kept
in this era and no personnel from it are still working here!” |
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SO
HERE ARE THE FACTS AS THEY ARE KNOW AT THE MOMENT:-
- Wade
admit they probably didn’t make the 25 prize pigs.
- Wade
might possibly have made some gold Woodys but who knows.
- Wade
now talk of a pottery other than Sunshine Ceramics that
the Bank used.
- Wade
have no records and they have no reference to anyone from
the time of manufacture.
So
in other words there is now no proof that Wade ever made any Gold
Woodys
- so who on earth did make them?
We
have now identified or contacted 7 of the 25 winners of the Piggy
Press competition who won Gold Woodys. They have all produced
copies of newspaper articles or photographs of them being presented
with their prizes. The inscription on the bottom of their pigs
is “One of twenty five only Golden Woody's” and “Manufactured
exclusively for the National Westminster Bank PLC”. Now,
unless we are to be so uncharitable as to contemplate a major
conspiracy, we should presumably be accepting that these are the
original, genuine Gold Woodys.
However,
quite apart from wondering who made them, we can't understand
how a multi-national corporation like NatWest could have ever
put their name to the dreadful English in the wording on the bottom
of the pigs.
They would have failed their GCSE with such glaring grammatical
errors!!!
- ‘One
of twenty five only Golden Woody's..’ is incorrect
and should be ‘One of only twenty five ...’
- Woody's is totally wrong as the apostrophe can only used in the case
of possession ie. Woody’s head or Woody's photo.
- The correct
plural of Woody is Woodys without any apostrophe.
- The third
problem is that it would be more usual to use PLC in lower
case ie. plc.
HAVING
GOT THAT OUT OF THE WAY WE HAVE TO WONDER WHICH POTTERY MADE THEM:-
Wade
did not - as stated above.
Sunshine Ceramics did not – they have told us so.
The Stoke Museum, an authority on the Potteries, only know of these
two manufacturers.
SO WHO DID?
Anyone who has any ideas please do contact us
Someone out there must know the answer to this puzzle!
Any
other winners of the Piggy Press competition
who we haven't been in contact with please do email us
as soon as possible, we need your help . . . thanks.
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If
you don’t believe how difficult it is to identify a genuine
Gold pig have a look at the following photographs,
all of which have been claimed to be the genuine article . . . .
but aren't!
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