"EXCLUSIVE" :- AHT Historical Airship Teapot by Racing Teapots

The original Teapot was designed in the late 1920's and was initially decided to be produced as a novelty item for the Imperial Airship Scheme. British pottery company "Racing Teapots" found the original mould in the storeroom

Two are availalbe, one in plain, the other as an R101 decal. PLEASE SPECIFY WHEN ORDERING, WHICH TEAPOT STYLE YOU WOULD LIKE

As this is a special item with a significant historical background relating to the British Airships, we are able to offer our AHT members a special discounted price of £50.00 including postage and packaging within the UK.

Secure postage is set at £5.00 for the rest of the world and delivery is expected to be within 21 days.

From Managing Director Peter Wood of Racing Teapots who contacted the AHT on discovery of the mould:-

" The records are not brilliant, but we can see that the Airship Teapot was first made in the 1920s, and there are a few notes and newspaper clippings about the long distance journeys of the Graf Zeppelin. There is a small note on one of the newspapers, which says, "Shall we make one?"

There is another note which says "Airship in Canada. Get the Airship Teapot into production." Another note reads, "Release the Airship in October, in time for Christmas. Put lustre on the fins, lid, spout and windows. Look at adding transfers......" This note is dated July 1930.

The last note says, "Send the 10 Airships to Germany as promised. Do not offer these teapots for sale elsewhere (R101)!" This is dated October 1930. So we concluded that the teapot was withdrawn from production, following the R101 crash.

I found the Airship master mould in the back of the stores, covered in dust. It is made from plaster, which was damp. We dried the mould out, slowly, and decided to pour slip (a liquid clay) into the dried mould just over two weeks ago.

Once the clay had dried, the 'green' airship was 'soft-fired.' Once the airship had cooled, we then dipped it in a white glaze - supplied by the same manufacturer (to the original specification, without the lead content of course!) who supplied the pottery with glaze in the 1920s. The airship was fired once again, and you can imagine how emotional we all were, at the factory, when the Airship emerged (in one piece) from the kiln; the first teapot from the mould in over 70 years. Our top decorator then applied bright paltinum lustre, which contains real silver, as directed by the notes of 1930"