Desirable early letter holder with tooled poppy design. 7 inches wide and 6 inches high. Very rare, I think these two and one or two more are the only ones I've seen. May either show up alone or part of the "poppy desk set" with blotter corners like below along with early plain tray, letter opener, and inkwell. Color may vary from caramel to dark brown. Both these are in excellent condition.

Click here for large pic of the bottom one.

Value: $1000+. Top one sold ebay 3/02 for $1,435; I paid $1,000 for the bottom one in 2004..




Blotter corners with tooled poppy design. These are big!, measuring over 4.5 inches on a side. Although poppy bookends show up on a regular basis, desk items with the poppy motif are pretty rare. One set showed up at GPI around 1999/2000 and the only other set I'm aware of I bought in 01/03 from a clueless antiques dealer. Upon close inspection I noticed that every corner is unique as these are entirely hand done. Click here to see the complete set of 4 corners. Good brown finish.

Value: Because of the rarity, this set is pretty valuable -- $1,500-$2,000+.




Desk unit. This piece was described in original catalogues as "Pen-and-Pencil-holder, Calendar, Memo Pad and Stamp Box". Excellent condition Aurora Brown finish, early mark and nice hammering.

Value: These tend to sell high when they come up, so $300-400. Latest auction price: $456 vg cond. brown ebay 3/02; $317 good cond. brown ebay 11/03.




Perpetual calendar. About 3.5 inches by 4 inches. Excellent condition Aurora Brown finish.

Value $150-250. Latest auction price: $208 ex cond ebay 2/02.




Perpetual calendar. This form has always struck me as a bit top heavy. Excellent condition Old Brass finish.

Value $125-175.




Letter Holder. Roycroft made lots of letter holders of various design. This is a nice one with a great brown finish.

Value $150-250. Aucion history: $348 vg cond ebay 3/05.




Letter Holder. Here's another nice letter holder in a brown finish.

Value $125-200.




Letter Holder. Here's another letter holder in a great brass finish.

Value $100-175.

Rare Italian Polychrome desk set circa 1920. The IP line is attributed to Walter Jennings and these items are really hard to find. Great workmanship and finish.

Value: sold Rago 3/08 for $3120 including premium.




Rare inkwell with extensive tooling and a polychrome finish. This is probably the nicest Roycroft inkwell I've seen.

Value $600-800. Sold for $550 plus premium at Rago's 9/00 -- the price was affected by the fact that this inkwell had a broken hinge.




Another rare Italian polychrome inkwell.

Value $500-700.




10 piece desk. It's unusual to find complete desk sets intact. Not only that, this one has an excellent Aurora Brown finish on every piece.

Value $800-1,000. Click here for a big pic.




4 piece desk. Excellent Aurora Brown finish, and nice design. Would be nice to have a matching stamp box.

Value $450-550.






Rare set of Walter Jennings blotter corners with tooled designs.

I think this is a really cool little set, as it nicely illustrates both Jennings' tooling skills and design flair. It includes another variation on his quatrefoil motif, this time with one point elongated to make a teardrop-ish shape. I don't think this exact design was used on any Roycroft-signed pieces. Note that like a lot of Jennings' personal stuff, the surfaces on these are not hammered, just plain copper with tooling. These were probably cleaned at some point because the undersides are brown.

Click here to see a big pic that shows off the workmanship.

Value: I guess $400-500 for the set.






Rare Walter Jennings page or card holder with tooled designs. About 5 inches long.

A nice little WJ item, with great workmanship. A case study in how valuable the finer WJ stuff is becoming, this piece sold for $525 on eBay 01/02. Note the rather whimsical version of his mark.

Click here to see a big pic that shows off the workmanship.

Value: $525 and rising.




Very rare early desk unit with inkwells.

Value: Sold ebay 3/20 for $713.




Double inkwell and pen tray. The crystal inkwells are original. Aurora Brown finish.

Value $500-750.




Rare early desk tray on oak with square rivets. The crystal holders are missing, but who cares!

Value $600-750.




Pen tray. About 7 inches by 2.5 inches. Really nice Aurora Brown finish.

Value $100-125.Auction history: $345 vg cond. ebay 3/05.




Inkwell with unusual design. Original Aurora Brown finish.

Value: I would have guessed $150-200, but this sold ebay late 2001 for around $325; $326 ex. cond. brown ebay 12/03.




Inkwell. This neat little inwell has a nice design and the brass finish is in very good condition.

Value $125-225.





Inkwell. Another cool inwell with a nice design and great brass finish.

Value $125-225. Sold ebay $170 8/00.




Letter opener. About 7.75 inches long. Really nice Aurora Brown finish.

Roycroft made a slew of different letter openers, but I don't feel like going through the trouble of putting a whole bunch of pictures of them on this site. Suffice it to say that most of them are worth up to about $100, maybe $150, depending upon finish and condition. If someone used yours as a screwdriver and it's all messed up then assume about $50. If you have a really nice brown one, maybe with some tooled designs, then assume up to $150. There are a few exceptions, a couple of which are shown below.




Rare and very early letter opener with Roycroft's earliest mark!

About 6.25 inches long, and quite heavy. I know, some of you may be thinking "that mark sure doesn't look right to me". Well, if I didn't know any better, I'd agree with you. But that funky "typewriter" mark is what makes this piece so special.

Some history: the very earliest documented copper items produced by the Roycrofters were some relatively simple pin trays and letter openers. This piece is one of those letter openers. It dates to around 1906 (the first year of the Copper Shop), BEFORE they even had a real orb and cross die stamp to sign things with. That mark looks so primitive because it was done by hand. So theoretically, this could be one of the first pieces of Roycroft copper EVER!

Value: $300-500 (just try and find one!). Auction results $463 ebay 8/08.




Letter opener by Walter Jennings. About 9 inches long. Although unsigned, the classic diamond flower design screams Walter Jennings (see the vase section if you don't know what I'm talking about). Really well made, as you can see by clicking here. Why didn't he spend 5 more seconds and put a mark on it? Original brown finish.

Value $100-150




Pencil/pen holder. Good Aurora Brown finish.

Value $125-200.




Paperclip. This is a small but rare item. Excellent condition Aurora Brown finish.

Value $250-400. Auction history: $312 vg cond brown ebay 12/04.