Metlox Pottery

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(pronunciation: as spelled)

If you like embossed rims on your plates, Metlox is for you. The company is
big on embossed plate rims, usually fruit and flowers if plate has normally sized rim. Also, even when the rim is smooth, they can’t seem to resist some embellishment of the rim on the edge. The company also has shapes with narrow and very narrow rims, and the coupe style with no rim at all. Those shapes with narrow, flat rims usually have a color band applied to it. There are some sets of plates with scenes, old South or old New England. These plates have narrow, banded rims and the scene takes up nearly the rest of the plate. Overall, the patterns vary from household casual to a few that are truly modern.

See Metlox pottery.

My opinion: Something for nearly everyone here. Modern shapes and patterns for some, more traditional casual patterns on embossed shapes for other. No traditional, formal dinnerware. Nice blue and white pattern in Antique Blue pattern. A piece or two of your favorite patterns would seem to be sufficient.

Product lines:
Dinnerware

  • Strong, plain colors on modern shapes, or colors shading from light to dark from rim to center.
  • painted or embossed fruit or flowers on plate rims.
  • Bits of … Patterns: Bits of Old England, … Old New England, … The Middle West, … The Old Northwest, … The Old South, … The Old West, … The Southwest: appropriate scenes within a narrow, banded rim
  • California Ivy: one of this companies best known patterns
  • many patterns named “California X”

Cookie Jars: nicely shaped, embossed details
American Royal Horses: horse statuettes
Songs of Christmas: plates based on Yuletide songs

China Shapes
MONTECITO: narrow, flat rim
ULTRA: even narrower rim
coupe: no rim at all
traditional: wide rim, often embossed or with raised details

Prices: Very reasonable for common patterns, on a par with original prices, given inflation, etc. More for the rarer pieces or patterns.

Collector’s Society: Metlox Nuts (http://home.earthlink.net/~ge1228/)

The official company site is: None. But see http://www.metloxcalifornia.com/ for many pictures and prices.

History
Founded by T. C. Prouty and his son Willie in Manhattan Beach California, in 1927 to make porcelain signs. The first housewares made by this company are known as the ProutyLine. Additional lines of dinnerware were introduced in 1932 under the name Poppytrail. The metal oxides and the talc used for the dinnerware were from California, so many of the dinnerware names include California in them. The metal oxides are the source of the Metlox name.

Miniatures were added to the Metlox production after the hiring of designer Carl Romanelli, as were the Modern Masterpieces line of bookends, figures and wall pockets.

Evan Shaw purchased the company in 1946, and the company included Disney characters in their production until 1956.

In 1958, Metlox acquired the trade name and molds for Vernon Kilns, which led to the Vernon Ware branch of the company.

Evan Shaw died in 1960, but the family kept the pottery functioning until production ceased in 1989.

For more information, go here.

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Read more about porcelain collectibles in the Porcelain Collectibles Guide.

Porcelain Tea Sets

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Porcelain tea sets are usually intended to be used, although some are so fancy it is hard to imagine such a thing. The regular European tea set may consists of the tea pot, sugar, creamer and four or six cups and saucers. Smaller sets may include just the teapot and a couple of mugs. Larger sets may include an additional hot water pot for the second round of tea, a waste jar for the dregs from each cup before a second cup is poured into it, and as many as a dozen cups and saucers.

Tea set makers like Franz include a specific spoon for each tea cup as well These fantasies of flowers, butterflies or ocean creatures are not really meant to be used, but a large tea set can be accumulated with patience and plenty of money.

Oriental tea sets usually consist of the tea pot and an odd number of tea cups, usually five. If the tea pot is smaller, there may only be three, and the pot only golds three cups of tea. Individual tea pots and single cup sets are also available.

A tea for one tea set is usually a stack of saucer, cup and pot, where the pot holds only two cups of tea. These sets can be quite imaginative in their design, with the cup and tea pot begin formed into animals or ornamental forms.

Children’s tea sets usually have the tea pot, sugar, creamer and six or eight cups and saucers, allowing for the inclusion of many stuffed animals and dolls in the youngster’s party. These sets used to be made from china, then metal and are now mostly made from plastic, but it is still possible to collect the older sets made from porcelain with some effort and working with an antique dealer or two.

Since many porcelain tea sets can be acquired one cup and saucer at a time, you can often make up a set to suit your own preferences, rather than accepting the number of cups or sugar bowls that the accepted set contains. Perhaps you have two forms of sugar you want to offer your guests, then two sugar bowls would make sense. You might also want a bowl for slices of lemon, as well as the creamer. And it is always a good thing to have two tea pots so there is plenty of tea to go around.

Find your own pattern and set up your tea set as you see fit.

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Porcelain Dolls

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Porcelain dolls include both bisque and china dolls. The bisque dolls are not glazed and so have a more realistic skin tone. The china dolls are glazed, making them shiny and more durable. Porcelain dolls include the whole figure, with painted hair and stiff limbs, to dolls with fully articulated limbs that bend at shoulder, elbow, hip, knee and neck.

Older dolls, frequently made in Germany or other European countries, included the head, arms and legs, and the doll maker supplied the torso. These dolls may have leather or cloth “bodies” stuffed with any number of fillings. The body in these cases is rather rectangular, with the and legs attached at the edges of the body. Older bisque dolls often craze as well, having hairline cracks in the surface of the porcelain., but crazing alone is not a guarantee of age.

Half dolls are formed in china or bisque and include the head, arms and upper half of the torso. Holes are provided so the doll maker can add the bottom half of the doll in his or her choice of costume and method of standing for these dolls. Also available from times past are porcelain dolls with composite bodies. These early plastic bodied dolls with only porcelain heads are often jointed and can be placed in both standing and sitting poses.

Porcelain dolls were very popular children’s toys in the Victorian era, from the 1860s to 1900. Some dolls have survived from that time, but new dolls are made every year as well. For antiques dolls, the value of a porcelain doll depends on its age, condition and the presence of the original costume. The manufacturer is also important, and dolls without a makers mark may be valued lower than those with such marks.

Modern porcelain dolls are generally made as collector’s items, and their value is best determined by looking for dolls made by the same maker on the secondary market, like eBay, to see how much they sell for there. There are also people making replicas of the antique dolls, so be sure to understand what you are buying before you put any serious money into a particular doll.

Buying antique and modern porcelain dolls requires some knowledge, but there are books, magazines and clubs to help the neophyte determine what he or she wants to collect. When in doubt, talk to a member of the National Antique Doll Dealers Association (NADDA) to get a feel for the real value of the doll in question. Appraisals are generally very reasonable and may save you a lot of money until you are able to judge the value of a doll for yourself.

The images on this post are from Stock Xchnge.

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Porcelain on Stamps

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One area where one can always spend some time, no matter what one collects, is on the stamps that depict one’s chosen collectible. This is true for porcelain as well as any other field of collecting. There may not be any US stamps with porcelain on them, but there are certainly stamps from other parts of the world which depict china and porcelain.

Chinese and Japanese stamps are bound to have many examples of porcelain over the years. Finding these stamps would only take a stroll though the Scott’s catalogs to identify them. While some of the stamps may be relatively easy to find, it might take a few years to find the more expensive stamps of a set or some of the earliest sets with porcelain on them. Paging through the paper catalog or the electronic one, look at the descriptions as well as the pictures of the stamps. Make a list of the appropriate Scott’s numbers, and you are set to start looking for the stamps themselves.

Europe must also be considered when looking for stamps with porcelain depicted on them, as porcelain and china have been local industries in Germany and other countries for several hundred years. Stamp sets celebrating these manufacturers should be found in both Eastern and Western Europe, regardless of where you set those boundaries. Here again, recording the Scott’s numbers of the stamp sets as you browse through the catalogs will allow you to determine which ones you want to collect and approximately how much the stamps will cost. Then you can get with several stamp dealers and work on building your collection of porcelain stamps.

Nearly every hobby shows up on stamps internationally at some point or other, so look for the stamps that illustrate your special interests and start a topical stamp collection. Easy to store and arrange, stamps can provide hours of fun as you search for and purchase porcelain stamps.

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Wade Potteries

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(pronunciation: as spelled)

Wade Potteries Limited consisted of several potteries in Etruria, Stoke-on-Trent, England and made porcelain and earthenware dishes, animal figurines, whiskey flagons, and industrial ceramics. The various potteries were started and run by members of the same family. Once joined together under family leadership, the number of potteries increase and included a pottery in Ulster (1946-1990′s). The older potteries have been closed and a new factory is highly robotic and makes flagons for the whiskey industry. The company no longer make the small figurines for which they are so well known to the younger public.

See Wade Pottery products.

My opinion: well made, the figurines and other Wade products are worth pursuing. When in Great Britain, look for the whiskey bottles and gurgling fish pitcher as well.

Product lines:
PAST:
Whimsies: small, solid animal figurines
TV Pets
Whoppas
Minikins
licensed figurines based on TV shows, comics, Disney films, Mr. Men, Pokemon
whiskey bottles
tiles
teapots
CURRENTLY:
dinnerware in white and strong colors
the famous guggle jug, a fish with upturned head and tail, it makes gurgling noises when pouring liquids
promotional items for various food companies

Prices:
Reasonable for past miniatures found on the same continent, but watch out for exchange rates and long distance shipping.

Collector’s Society: Wade International Collector’s Club

The official company site is: http://www.wade.co.uk/

History
est 1867, several companies founded by members of the same family, unified as Wade Potteries Limited in 1958. Various claims to fame include making the tiles used in the London Underground.
run from the 1930′s to 1986 by Colonel Sir George Wade as a single company. Acquired by Beauford Plc in 1998, renamed Wade Ceramics Ltd, now part of Wade Allied Holdings.

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Read more about porcelain collectibles in the Porcelain Collectibles Guide.

Christmas China

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There are many types of holiday china that can be used to augment the various end-of-the year celebrations you might hold. These include whole china sets, various assorted mugs, and kitchen decorations like cookie jars and canisters.

One form of Christmas ephemera is the many teapots and mugs available to decorate and use for the holiday season. Although you sometimes have to buy matching mugs, in sets of four usually, most often these holiday extras come as individual purchases. There are also holiday teapots either to match or complement the seasonal mugs, So you can accumulate a wide assortment of mugs to use year after year. Serving wassail or spiced cider drinks to holiday visitors or at parties you host can add a very festive touch to these occasions.

There are many Christmas china patterns, that can be purchased by the place setting or by the complete set, depending on how much you want to spend and whether you want all the place settings to be the same. Traditionally, the table is set with every place the same, but imagine a table where each place is set with different china and drink ware. Some places with predominantly green or red china, or others with gold and silver patterns. This would be a fun table to set, and to collect the components as you find them. It may take some time to find enough for everyone, but as you add settings, no doubt some of the people at your table will develop a preference for a particular setting and it will become “their” place.

For decorating the kitchen for the season’s festivities, there are special ceramic cookie jars, canisters, salt and pepper shakers, spoon rests and other items. These can be fancy like the products of Fitz & Floyd or as simple as the offerings at the local dollar store or warehouse store. These special holiday decorations can be unpacked and enjoyed for many years, and even become family heirlooms to be passed on to the next generation. Look for kitchen ornamental wares as you shop the before and after Christmas sales and pick up a few for next year.

We celebrate the end of the year in many fashions, and there is holiday china for each of the major celebrations. Offer visitors the special food and drink of your holiday traditions in or on china specially made for the season. Happy Holidays!

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