What is a sadler teapot?

Well, I bought a teapot at a charity auction, and the fellow who donated it said "that's a real Sadler teapot". At the time I thought ...okay, whatever ...the money was for the United Way, and then I put it on a shelf and thought nothing more about it. Today though it caught my eye, and I thought I'd find out a little more about it.

Turns out I knew more about Sadler teapots than I thought, because I've been drinking out of brown betty teapots my whole life! I didn't realize that they were "special" - I just knew they made the best tea. The tea out of a brown betty is never bitter, and it stays hot much longer than other pots. My mother always said never to wash my brown betty, and I also wondered where that came from. A quick search on the internet revealed that some heretics apparently do wash and even bleach their tea pots -  heaven forbid.

http://www.tealaden.com/teaweb/choosing.htm

imagine my shock - when I tried to find an image of my litter tea pot, I found the estimated worth at one auction to be between $100 and $400!!! Not so on ebay though - on ebay it's currently going for $26.00 - still that's a lot more than I paid for it!

http://www.english-teapots.com/england/teapot_james_sadler.htm