El Portal Porcelana

"For People Passionate About Spanish Porcelain"

NAO Catalog - Gres Figurines, p. 1

(See also Nativity & Christmas Themes.)

Gres models of NAO items are very difficult to find on the secondary market. They were expensive to make and, consequently, expensive to buy. Because this routinely placed them beyond what were considered the ideal "price points" for NAO retail sales, with prices rivaling those for items in the regular Lladró collection, the company ceased producing Gres figurines in the NAO brand, retiring the last of them in 2000.

Then, in 2011, NAO suddenly began producing Gres or Gres-like figures again, often at the same price points as the regular porcelain models. However, the price points for NAO made only in Gres remain high, and it remains to be seen whether the secondary market will support prices on recently retired NAO that rival those for the core Lladró brand, particularly since the secondary market for Lladró is considerably softer now than it was in the collectible heydays of the 1980s and early 90s. In a soft market, the more expensive an item is at retail, the more collectors will be inclined to look for a price break below retail on the secondary market. Estimating values on recently retired NAO Gres is particularly challenging because the high price points (bearing down on secpndary market values) are also leveraged against the relative scarcity of Gres models in this brand (buoying prices up). As with all Lladró products, the highest secondary market prices tend to be reserved to those items earliest retired/longest off the retail market.

Several early Gres items were also made, under the same catalog number, in the regular porcelain formula, and those items are signified, in their respective theme sections in the catalog, as having been made in both. The only items included in this Gres section of the catalog will be those items produced in Gres only or those produced as regular porcelain models but with an entirely different catalog number.

One of the particular advantages of the Gres formula is that it allows for the production of larger figurines than is generally possible with regular porcelain, with item heights routinely topping 12" or more.