The Collectors
SEARCH
Friday 9 November 2007
watch entire episode 
download entire episode
This week’s Show and Tell item discovered on the website is a photo featuring a set of Beswick flying Mallards and was sent in by Rob from Western Australia.
The rare thing about Rob’s set is that there are five ducks rather than the usual three most people tend to own. Adrian explains that a complete set contains six ducks in total but few people have this set.
Flying duck sets like this are quite common, but this is due to the high number of fakes that have been produced in the past. Adrian says a good way to tell if you have authentic Beswick pieces is to look for the numbers on the back of each duck. The back of one of Rob’s has the number #5960, however the last number could be anything from 0 to 5 which indicates the size of the duck. An authentic piece will also have ‘Beswick England’ stamped on the back. Looking at the ducks from the front, the Beswick ducks have deep orange coloured beaks and detailed webbed claws, whereas the fakes are simpler.
Adrian says while there are many ways to display a set of ducks on a wall, as long as they go from large to small or visa versa they will look fine.
A set of three Beswick flying Mallards recently sold for ₤400 in England, so Adrian says Rob could expect his set of 5 to be worth between $1500 and $2000.
