Collecting antiques can be thirsty work, especially with tea sets like these!

I’ve got a Christmas lunch trivia question for you: Which long-running TV advertising campaign launched 65 years ago, on Christmas Day 1956? It was the first advert featuring the PG Tips chimpanzees.

Still voted among the public’s favourite adverts, nearly twenty years on from the chimps’ retirement, the campaign catapulted the struggling Brooke Bond Company to the best-selling tea brand within just two years.

A staple of British life, tea isn’t just something we drink, it’s a comfort, a ritual, and also a collectable. I love buying speciality teas in pretty boxes and hampers for presents (often presents to myself).

Perhaps the most practical tea-related gift and collectable is the teapot, although many have passed from ‘useable’ to ‘purely decorative’, with impractical decoration, munchkin-sized handles, and non-functioning spouts!

A vintage or antique teapot adds a sense of occasion to your daily brew and definitely tastes better!

This silver plated tea set pot is one of many we always have in the centre. This is priced at £35.

Taking inspiration from Chinese examples, the first British teapots were small in size and made from pure silver.

Original examples come on the market very rarely and can fetch tens of thousands of pounds.

Poor quality clay teapots used by the working classes had a tendency to crack or break at the handle. Breakthroughs in production ensured ceramics such as Josiah Wedgwood’s 1760’s creamware and Spode’s 1790’s bone china didn’t ‘fly’ (crack due to hot water), making Staffordshire the key source of Georgian middle class tea ware.

Because many 18th century styles were repeated in later centuries, base marks can help eliminate later reproductions. 19th century Wedgwood Jasperware teapots fetch around £200 in pristine condition.

Novelty, commemorative and comic teapots long been popular collectables, like 20th century Sadler teapots, which often feature bygone or historic scenes and cars, trains and buses. A very popular design features Alice and the Mad Hatter taking tea in Wonderland.

Collectors often specialise in a theme, such as animals, transport, popular figures or notable events, rather than one designer. Wedgwood and Whieldon’s famous vegetable and fruit teapots are good investments; a cabbage or pineapple in mint condition today can fetch several thousand pounds!

I think it’s worth raising a cuppa to spending this Christmas with family, friends and loved ones once again. Cheers, and a very Merry Christmas to you.