UK collector paid $15 for broken teapot; it later sold for $575,00

A UK collector who paid just £15 for a broken, lidless teapot at an auction in 2016 later discovered that the piece was one of the rarest known examples of early American porcelain. The teapot was eventually sold for £575,000, after experts identified it as a piece made by Staffordshire potter John Bartlam in South Carolina in the 1760s.The collector, a private buyer from south-west England, had bought the teapot at a general auction in the Midlands, The Independent reported. It had a broken handle and was missing its lid. At the time, the piece was thought to be Isleworth pottery, made at a factory in Middlesex between 1766 and 1800. However, the buyer was not convinced by that identification.He then took the teapot to Clare Dunham, an expert at Woolley and Wallis auctioneers in Salisbury.