We would like to warn all Wade Collectors about the restored Wade Gollies appearing for sale, especially here on ebay. These pieces were originally premiums for Robertson's Jam.  The majority of these pieces up for auction are restored pieces.  Up to 90% are not as they came from the Wade Ceramics Factory.  This has caused the value of the authentic pieces to drastically drop in price.  About 5 years ago authentic Wade golliwogs from Robertson's Jam would easily bring $250 and now the same ones are lucky to bring $80.

Many of the gollies appearing on sale are dug-up from the old Wade Car Park. When Wade sold this area off, many were astounded to find that much of the backfill had been built up with damged rejected pieces.  The pieces found are chipped or unfinished and then are restored. Most of the restoration is done poorly.  One of our sources of information from England, said a restoration shop had told them they had 1,000's of golliwogs delivered to them for restoration!

The easiest way to tell which is more likely to be original is to look at the eyes. Whoever is restoring these figures cannot figure out how to do the eyes correctly. The restored figures usually have oval eyes with the same thickness of white around a black pupil. The original golly has eyes that are decals and perfectly round - including a rounf pupil that is lower in the white areas.

Other pieces complely have the wrong coloring on the musical instruments such as black saxaphones when they were only done in yellow.  The only true way to know is to actually see and feel the piece in person.  Also check the piece against photos from reccommended Wade collector books by Pat Murray and Ian Warner and Mike Posgay.  True Wade Golliwogs have white bases.  There are authentic black base golliwogs but they were not produces by Wade but a company belived to be in Portigual.

Below left is a photo of an authentic Wade Ceramics Golly eye decal.  The Golly below right is a fake/restored Golly - Notice the badly painted eyes.  We call all restored gollys fakes as they almost always dupe the Wade Collectors.