Wade Figurines

I discovered these wonderful Wade figurines quite by accident. We were set up at a local flea market and a couple of women asked us if we had any Wade whimsies. I asked her for a little more detail and she said they were small miniature animals and nursery rhyme figures. I said we didn’t, but would try to find some before the next flea market.

Wade Figurines From Red Rose Tea

This was before computers and the internet, so we did some research in a trade magazine and found a source for these Wade figurines. The ones that these ladies were seeking were given away as premiums in Red Rose Tea starting in the seventies. This tea company started in Canada and eventually expanded into the U.S. If you bought a box of Red Rose Tea, there was a Wade porcelain figurine inside. Depending on the promotion it could be either an animal known as whimsies or a small nursery rhyme figure. In England, Wade had been making these porcelain figurines for years and selling them in their retail line. These Wade figurines from the fifties are more colorful and have more detail. I have shown a photo of a rhino from the fifties as well as one from the seventies so you can see the difference. There were a total of 24 nursery rhyme figures and 67 whimsies from the seventies. I am giving dates because Wade is still producing figurines and Red Rose Tea is still offering premiums. Some of these are now being offered as mail order only. The best WordPress Developers at studioten.org.

In those original Red Rose Tea promotions there always seems to be a few of the Wade figurines that are more difficult to find. Some are obvious. Like the Gingerbread Man which was very thin and easily broken. The same for the butterfly and a few others. But the Three Bears was hard to find as well as the Poodle which was a little larger than the other animals for some reason. These commanded higher prices. We had customers who were avid collectors and wanted to make sure they had complete sets. We had one lady who bought a complete set of the animals for each new grandchild. Some of the figurines had variations through the years of production and some of these are much harder to find.

Red Rose Tea also offered a series of Whoppas, which were a larger set of animals. They were available by mail order only, and were short lived because of a strike by the Canadian postal workers. There are twenty of these in the series and it is getting very difficult to make a complete set of these. Wade also made a series of larger nursery rhymes that were available in their retail line. There were some slight differences in the smaller line and the larger ones. And as I previously said, Red Rose tea continues to offer various Wade miniatures to this day.

Other Wade Figurines

Wades‘s retail line of figurines is much more extensive than the figurines given away by Red Rose Tea. Most of these Wade figurines were also in their retail line and a few of them were available only in retail. Still others of these were used to make little trays called whimtrays. They have also made several series of Wade figurines for Disney representing some of their beloved characters.

Wade also did many different figurines for Tom Smith Party Crackers. If you are not familiar with a party cracker, it is a tube filled with party favors and sometimes streamers and confetti, that is wrapped and has strings on each end that you pull causing a pop (or crack), getting its name form the popping sound. Sometimes these were made exclusively for Tom Smith and others used figurines from Wade’s retail line.

There are some wondeful price guides on all of these Wade figurines and many others not discussed in this article. Here are a few of the best Wade price guides. Wade of Ireland also had an extensive line of Wade figurines. Here is a comparison chart for some of the best Wade price guides:

Sometimes a series had very limited production and made those particular miniature more difficult to find. One of those directly affected us when we were one of the largest dealers of Wade miniatures in the U.S. Wade made several series of miniature houses called Whimsy-on-Why. Then they made a limited series called the Painted Ladies which was a set of colorful houses and a cable car from San Francisco. These were proving popular because of their colorful houses and they were also representing something from the U.S. But there was some problem with contracts and they were suddenly discontinued. Because of this limited production, it is difficult to find a complete set of these if they weren’t bought at the time of production.

Wade made many other figurines. There were the Wade families, which were a group of three whimsical animals, a mother and two babies. Similar to these were the dog books. One “book” contains the adult dog and the next one had two puppies. The box these came in was made to look like a book. We currently have a large selection of these for sale as well as many other Wade figurines. I will try to find all of them (now in storage) and give alink for the complete list with prices.

Wade also made larger figurines, some of them were beautiful. There was a series of birds and very large animals. We owned several of these at one time, but sold them to customers who asked for them. I regret selling these now because they are nearly impossible to find.

Wade made many other items besides these whimsical Wade figurines. One example was a series of kitchen items based on the cottages from the Whimsey-on-Why series. There were four canisters, a tea pot, salt and pepper, cheese dish and another storage container. I could go on and on. I have added a video showing many examples of these wonderful whimsical Wade figurines.

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