Leaper Bull, Newlyn Pottery

This was for sale on ebay last week. Obviously by Eric (or Simon) Leaper, but rather confusingly the description said signed NF.  Very happy to turn it over and find the signature Leaper Newlyn.

Here he is with his brothers!

what a load of bull

Interesting that he is slightly different to the normal ones.
He seems to have horns and ears.
I wonder if he's just a rare variant, or if he's an early version? I can imagine that those forward pointing thin horns were a tad fragile. Perhaps they were removed and the ears turned into horns for later moulds (the ears on yours look a bit shorter than the regular horns in the same place)??

NICE.

He is interesting! First of all the signature came as a real suprise, but the other thing is that it feels lovely. The glaze is really super and he is light in the hand. This prompted us to weigh them all!
New bull 658g
Lava glaze 1285g
Blue bull 1014g
Green bull 1379g
His tail also curls on the other side.
I don’t know if any profound conclusions can be drawn but I really, really like this example!

If anyone has contact with Simon, it might be worth asking him about this one.
Or contact Tom and see what he knows, or if he can ask Simon.
Tom is still working and has a website.