(pronunciation: as spelled)

Rookwood Pottery has been popular and highly identifiable since its beginning. Many styles of pottery have been made by the pottery in the years since its founding in 1880. Various lines of pottery, including both those with a hard, glossy finish and those with matte glazes have been remarkable for their profusion of designs and shapes. When the pottery was closed in 1967, the formulas and molds were kept together until economic support could be gathered to reinstate the pottery name and production in the 1980′s and the first decade of the Twenty-First Century. Work continues to this day to reuse the Rookwood Pottery molds and glazes in production pieces for modern sensibilities.

All Rookwood pottery is marked with the RP (R reversed), with a way to determine the date of production, some shape or line designations, and with the initials of the decorators in many cases.

See Rookwood Pottery.

My opinion: Some of the lines of Rookwood are heavy and dark, but the matte glazed forms can be beautiful. Those so-called “reproductions”, made in white or other colors after the revival of the pottery in the 1980′s may well show off the forms even more completely by the absence of heavy colors or thick glazes. Look for those forms and decorations, modern or original, that speak to you, and pray the entire Rookwood production does not all call your name. The tiles are very nice.

Product lines:
Standard Glaze: deep, rich under-glaze backgrounds with floral motifs or genre scenes. Frequently these pieces are most notable for the dark overall tone of the pieces. Vases, jugs, mugs, plaques; shades of ochre and brown predominate.
Sea Green: combinations of green and blue with touches of warm colors like brown or golden yellow. Vases predominate.
Arial Blue: shades of blue similar to the porcelain of Royal Copenhagen.
Iris Glaze: a hard, shiny glaze over decorations of shades of similar colors, in the Royal Copenhagen aesthetic. Vases predominate.
Iris/Black Iris: incised objects or those with a deep, black background. Some of these have metal overlays or metallic lids. Vases primarily.
Matte glazes: also called the Z class for the Z impressed on the pieces from 1900 to 1904. Pieces may be modeled, incised or painted with various matte glazes. Vases and bowls.
Vellum: pieces with normal, painted designs but retaining an overall matte finish. Vases, plaques, bowls.
Soft, porcelain body, used after 1914. Previous stoneware body continued to be used for some of the previous glaze lines. Several lines of glazes were created or re-developed for the new porcelain body. More variation in line and style of decorations as well as shapes. Vases, bowls, tiles.
Production Wares: products considered to be more mass produced than the hand-painted wares of the other lines. Molded, usually simply decorated or covered in one glaze. Bookends, bowls, candlesticks, flower frogs, figures, ginger jars, planters, vases.

Prices:
From almost reasonable to out of the question, depending on the piece. Hold out for those you like best, and save your money until the right time comes to buy.

Collector’s Society: None.

The official company site is: http://www.rookwood.com/

History
Rookwood, named after the family estate, was established in 1880 by Maria Longworth Nichols. She was heavily influenced by the pottery on display at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition. Her pottery expanded and began to employ full-time decorators in 1881.

Over the years the Rookwood Pottery decorators and molders kept pace with the changing fashions of the time, including Art Nouveau and Arte Deco. The pottery survived economic depressions and world wars. Their success invited imitation by J.B. Owens, Roseville, Weller and other area potteries throughout the first half of the Twentieth Century. Finally changing tastes and the availability of other materials led to the end of production in 1967. Even still, the Rookwood molds and glaze formulas were kept together and several attempts at re-establishing production have occurred since. Arabic numerals indicate those efforts after 1967 from the originals.

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Read more about porcelain collectibles in the Porcelain Collectibles Guide.

(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.

Go to the Table of Contents to see all the topics covered so far.

Read more about porcelain collectibles in the Porcelain Collectibles Guide.