Turkey (Red Rose Tea, Calendar Series VII, by Wade Ceramics)

It’s Thanksgiving this week in the United States, and as a result I feel once again compelled to review a turkey, as I did the year prior. Since I didn’t have a plastic turkey for review last year, I went with a plush one instead. Here it is a year later, and I have failed to acquire a turkey since then and now have to resort to whatever turkey I might have lying about. Thankfully, I found one, this ceramic turkey by Wade Ceramics.

I’ve reviewed a Wade figurine once before, a sturgeon that I thought was too unique to ignore. At the time I didn’t have many Wade figurines. I still don’t collect them, but now my wife does, and we have dozens of them. I won’t get into the history of Wade Ceramics as I already discussed it in the sturgeon review. There are also other websites more dedicated to the company, if you decide that you want to dive deeper.

The Wade Ceramics turkey is part of Wade’s Calendar Series. Figurines from this set represent the 12 months of the year with the turkey representing November. This set was in production from 2008-2012. Although Wade Ceramics is based in England these particular figurines were distributed in the United States, as premiums included in boxes of Rose Red Tea.

There’s not much to actually review here, the figurine speaks for itself. It’s a brown, ceramic male turkey in display. Virtually all turkey figurines and toys are displayed like this, and I find it kind of frustrating. It would be nice to get some turkeys in other postures, or some hens for a change. I say this mostly focusing my ire at the more traditional animal toys we collect than I am a figurine like this, of course this turkey figurine is doing the classic turkey display, I wouldn’t expect anything else.

The figurine is fine for what it is but admittedly unremarkable. The head is too large, the tail fan could be larger, and the body plumper, but it’s hard to take a little figurine like this to task. There is some admirable detail work in the feathers, the turkey’s snood hangs in front of the left eye, and a wattle is present on the neck. The turkey is sculpted propped up on a tree stump to help thicken and add support to the figurine’s base. The figurine is stamped WADE ENG on the back of the base.

It doesn’t escape me that a figurine like this is of little interest to our primary demographic, but I thought it would be fun to look at something different for a change. Although I don’t collect Wade figurines a lot of them are quite charming and represent some rather unique animals, including a sturgeon, pine marten, bushbaby, and spotted owl. Wade figurines are cute, whimsical, and easy to collect and display. Most of them can be found readily online for $5 or less and are generally cheaper at antique and collectable stores.

 And with that, I wish everyone that celebrates it a happy Thanksgiving. Hopefully by next year I’ll have acquired a more suitable turkey for the blog.