This year is the 13th in which I have chronicled Cybis porcelains and the studio that produced them; this month is also the 9th anniversary of the Cybis Archive, and you are reading the 300th new post uploaded to the site! The 100th post was my tribute to Marylin Chorlton, and the 200th provided a [...]
Category: Useful Topics
Cybis at the Museum of American Porcelain Art
Even though it opened less than seven years ago, the Museum of American Porcelain Art (MAPA) currently has more pieces of Cybis porcelain in its holdings than any other museum in the world. It leads the other two of the Top Three public Cybis collections by a wide margin in terms of quantity. How did [...]
How Not to Sell Cybis on eBay
eBay is by far the largest selling venue for Cybis porcelains, with more than 1000 listings active on any given day, but the range of approaches taken by sellers is as wide as the Grand Canyon. An epically-awkward listing recently appeared and prompted me to create this post as a small tutorial showing the Good, [...]
Cybis ‘Sleeping Beauty’: Buyer, Beware that Lace!
The 1980s limited edition Sleeping Beauty is one of the most difficult pieces to find in a truly mint (un-damaged) condition today. There is an area of porcelain lace that seems to attract breakage like a rare-earth magnet. Unfortunately, most online sellers either don’t know or don’t disclose the extent of the damage and so [...]
Look-back Change for the Recent Sales Page
Just a quick heads-up that the ‘look-back period’ for the Recent Sales page has changed a bit, at least for most entries. Until today, the earliest sales on that page have been from 2018. (All of the pre-2022 sales are gleaned from auction house results, not from eBay.) However, the page is starting to become [...]
Market Value of Cybis Porcelains Marked ‘A.P.’
This is an expansion of/addendum to my July 2021 post explaining the nine different reasons that a piece of Cybis porcelain might have been marked AP (which most people would assume means ‘artist proof’ but – as that Archive post explains – on Cybis pieces it probably does not actually mean that.) I am often [...]
Decals Used on Cybis Porcelain Items
Although the vast majority of Cybis porcelain pieces were completely hand-painted, there were some exceptions to that ‘rule’ at various times during the studio’s existence. Interestingly, the exceptions are remarkably consistent in terms of genre. But first, an explanation of the processes by which a decal is used to decorate china or porcelain. All decals [...]
The Runaway Cybis Bride (and Groom)
I’m using the word ‘runaway’ to describe the in-all-directions editions and nomenclature of the star players in the Cybis studio’s late-1980s wedding series. Trust me: The plot of the 1999 Julia Roberts/Richard Gere movie was simpler than this one! Cybis finally inaugurated a wedding-theme porcelain series in Spring 1987 with five open (non-limited) editions. Only [...]
‘My Cybis Isn’t Signed!’ (and why)
Although two of my Archive posts (Signatures & Marks, and Authenticating, Part Two) delve into the subject of the various Cybis signature formats, I hadn’t addressed the occasional discovery of pieces that have no signature at all, despite being undoubtedly a Cybis-made item. There are three possible scenarios that can account for a Cybis sculpture [...]
How to Properly Pack Porcelain Figurines
Few things are more disheartening than to see a lovely porcelain sculpture emerge from its shipping or 'moving' box with breakage. Whether you are sending, receiving, or simply moving such an item from one residence to another, there is plenty of how-to packing information on the internet. The problem is that some of it is [...]
THE CYBIS ARCHIVE 