In an antique land

Will the very large number of majolica tiles coming up for sale next month make them collectibles.

Some time next month, Maneka Gandhi will be single-handedly responsible for making you either very rich, or very poor "" depending on whether you're already a tile collector, or are planning to buy tiles at her People for Animals fundraiser.

And no, before you get the idea that these are bathroom or kitchen tiles (which they might well be, too), what Gandhi is planning to sell to collectors is a cache of old, even antique tiles which have been sourced from around the country by dealers, so in one fell swoop she's putting 10,000 such tiles in the market at, shall we say, slightly stiff prices.

The domino effect of which is going to mean that with so many of them being removed simultaneously from the marketplace, they will become rarer than they are now, turning them into coveted collectibles. And with a public proclamation of their prices (Rs 1,800-2,000 each for most), they will "" if sold ""become a base parameter on which their prices will be established in the bazaar.

In the eighties, such tiles "" and they were quite easily available then "" could be bought off kabaris for Rs 20 apiece, and you could bargain further if you were buying a dozen or more. By the nineties, such tiles were available only with antique sellers (mostly those who dealt in furniture) and were likely to be priced around Rs 200 each.

In the last few years, their availability has become scarcer, and with Gandhi benchmarking the price in the region of Rs 2,000, could certainly take them into the league of antiques worth investing in.

Most of the tiles being put up for sale are majolicas "" European ceramic tiles in rich, opaque colours and a high glaze that were manufactured in Mediterranean Europe and exported through the port of Majorca.

Today, majolica tiles are defined as those with embossed relief, in bright, hand-painted colours and a white tin glaze for a high gloss finish. Imported chiefly from England, France and Italy, they were used as decorative elements in havelis and townhouses in Gujarat and Rajasthan, in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, sometimes in buildings and often in furniture.

Majolicas are sometimes also combined with transfer prints, and of course Gandhi also has some specially created portraits (such as a commemorative 1911 tile of King George V and Queen Mary's coronation, which might be priced around Rs 8,000), or specially commissioned panels consisting of a number of tiles recreating, for instance, images of Hindu gods, or Raja Ravi Varma's paintings "" these would be expensive.

Since Gandhi is planning to price most of the majolicas on a standard basis, the collector could do better than simply choose indiscriminately. To begin with, remember that the colours pink and blue, especially in the earlier tiles (these probably range from the late 19th century, though are mostly from around 1905 to a decade or so later), were largely unstable, and so were rarer.

Therefore, look out for tiles that use these colours, preferably together, particularly if you are looking to collect antique tiles for their rarity. They were more expensive a century ago, and should be viewed as investments today.

If you go to www.tileheaven.com, you can see not only how antique tiles are priced based on the motifs, colours and so on (and usually at twice the value that Gandhi has priced them in India), but also on the basis of their quality "" the last implying everything from the fineness of the hand that painted them to the firing cracks, glazing mist, kiln dirt or blow (which happened when the glaze was gassed during firing), causing less than perfect (but perfectly acceptable) tiles, resulting sometimes also in specks or spots, a roughness to the edges, and bloom or matting caused by fine dust as a result of overheating in the kiln.

If these manufacturing defects, in fact, make such tiles collectibles today, the keen collector must look out for the havoc wrought by subsequent decades that may result in discolouration, crazing, staining or iridescence.

Of these, crazing, which causes a web of cracks under the glaze to form as a result of the effects of temperature on the terracotta and the glaze, is to be expected and does little to harm the value of a tile (for me, personally, it is where the appeal of such tiles may lie).

But what most certainly could harm value are cracks (such tiles are dispensable), chips (on the surface it is a serious downer; on the edges, it affects value only nominally; and remember that while chipping on the top edge or sides may be noticeable, it is less likely to be visible when it is at the bottom edge of a tile). Sometimes tiles were trimmed to fit, but if this has not resulted it any damage, collectors will find this acceptable.

Mostly, though, you will find that it is on the obverse side of the tiles that a little of the plaster may have chipped of. This is the result of adhesive being used to fix it on furniture. This is not considered to have caused any damage and should not result in lowering the value of these century-old tiles.

I may no longer be able to invest in antique tiles thanks to Gandhi's cornering of the market with steep prices (though I'm thankful that those I already own are now worth a tidy fortune) but should you be inclined to bag your pile of tiles, call the Gandhi residence for a viewing (Delhi 23355883) or prepare to elbow your way through hordes of Aamir Khan groupies at the sale at Hotel Grand InterContinental on August 8, 2008.