ABSTRACT
A woman, irritated by her neighbour whose house she and a friend are in, waits for the neighbour to leave the lounge. She then picks up a china ornament and wilfully smash es it on the floor, blaming her friend for so doing. 'Oh! that was Franklin Mint!' cries the offended neighbour. This is a scene from lohn Water's film Serial Mom, with Kathleen Turner as the offender. The neighbour's lounge is in fact inhabited largely by Franklin Mint ornaments. The Franklin MintIBradford Exchange organisation is probably still the world leader in mai I order ceramic 'collectables'. There are, however, many other fish in this particular sea. From Sunday newspaper colour supplements to television listings magazines, full-page colour advertisements for china dolls, decorated plates, and ceramic thimbles with free display racks abound. In Britain, such marketing has been the saviour of more than one Staffordshire pottery, along with the uptum in the collecting of such material. 'Iris Quartet is now a fine collectors' plate of rare beauty' boasts the advertisement. In fact, very little of this kind of material ever becomes collectable.
