American Limoges

Posted on December 3, 2011 by geekness

(pronunciation: lim-oje)

Although it was not always known as the American Limoges Company, being names the Limoges China Company from 1900 to 1949, the maker’s marks shown for this company includes USA when the term “American” is not included. Thus, it should be easy to tell this company’s products from those from the Limoges area of France, which frequently have only the word “Limoges” in their maker’s mark.

The company lasted long enough to reach the modern design era, so some of the china forms and decorations are in the modern style. There are also older, more traditional designs such as the European china companies have produced.

My opinion: This company did produce some interesting modern designs. A piece here and there should be sufficient.

Product lines:
Replacements, Ltd has almost 500 patterns in their list of American Limoges. Even if color variations are listed separately, and the numbered portion of the list duplicates the names portion, that is still quite a collection of patterns.

No silver or crystal listings are provided, so this company apparently did not survive to the years of diversification.

Prices:
reasonable for china, dinner plates about $24 for true porcelain, less for china, salad plate around $10.

Collector’s Society: None.

The official company site is: None.

History

Established in 1900, the Limoges China Company was renamed the American Limoges Company in 1949, due to a dispute with the Limoges China Company in France. The company produced European porcelain dinnerware, tea sets, chocolate sets, and fruit, salad and soup sets for the American market. Output included semi-vitreous china as well as true porcelain.

American Limoges developed the tunnel kiln, which fired the more china in an easier to load and unload structure, replacing the beehive kiln used since before written history. That revolutionized the production of china in the US and around the world, where it was adapted. American Limoges also used decal decoration heavily, reducing the necessity for hand-painted decorations, and painters, on its many china patterns.

Production ceased in 1955.

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

Read more about porcelain collectibles in the Porcelain Collectibles Guide.

China Knife Rests

Posted on December 2, 2011 by geekness

One small item of china or porcelain that makes a nice collection and display is the knife rest. These small bars of china keep the knife, preserved by the diner from one course to the next, from lying on a table cloth or the table and leaving remains of the meal there. Today, they are pretty much in the same class as place cards, but they were once part of any table setting, along with open salt cellars and napkin rings. Now they are the epitome of grand dining, except for where the place setting is so grand that there is a different knife for each course, as needed.

Antique Knife Rests

Porcelain and china knife rests are an easy collection to start. Ask in most antique stores and there will be one or two you can look at. China knife rests in the popular china patterns of the past are easily found, like the Blue Onion pattern. Sometimes an entire set in the original packaging is available. You can find knife rests at estate sales as well.

New Knife Rests

New china knife rests are less easily found. They are sold in sets of six or eight, and may be as plain or as fancy as any china table accessory. Knife rests today are also made from several metals, including sterling and silver plate, as well as pewter, and they are made from other materials as well.

Use of Knife Rests

Knife rests are and were used where the table setting of flatware has only one knife for the entire meal. As food course follows course, the knife is placed on the rest when the previous plate is leaving the table and the next course is coming out of the kitchen. Whether the meal is served on a bare table top, place mats or linen tablecloth, no householder wants the remains of any course on the table when the meal is complete. Hence, the knife rest.

Older versions of the knife rest may be combined with a napkin ring or an open salt dip, but most are single function items. Many are long enough, or have two flat places, so the fork can be saved for the next course as well as the knife. Carving sets also frequently have knife rests, which can also have a place to rest the carving fork when not in use.

Chopstick Rests

Chopstick rests are a version of the knife rest from a different eating utensil tradition, showing that the concern for reusing the eating utensils while not making a mess on the table is relatively universal. Chopstick rests have the same advantages as knife rests as a collectible, but the sets will come in odd numbers, usually five, as odd numbers are luckier in the East. Most chopstick rests are made from china or porcelain.

Chopstick rests are frequently in the form of animals or food items, and are rarely larger than a couple of inches. Knife rests are generally from two to four inches long. Both versions of this utilitarian items rest securely on the table, as there is no point in having a knife rest that wobbles and dumps the eating apparatus onto the tablecloth after all the effort of making and having a rest to prevent that very thing.

See knife rests.

Learn More

Many antique and collectibles books may have a section on knife rests, or list knife rests among other glass and porcelain table items, but for pictures of many knife rests, see Knife Rests by Virginia L. Neas, Glassy Mountain Press, Pickens, South Carolina, 1987.

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

Stangl Pottery

Posted on November 25, 2011 by geekness

(pronunciation: same as strangle, but without the R sound)

Stangl produced nearly one hundred hand-painted pottery dinnerware patterns over the years 1930 to 1972. In addition, the company produced over one hundred bird figurines based on the Audubon bird prints. Gold washed decorative pieces were produced in the late 1950′s. Except for some dinnerware, all Stangl products are marked.

See Stangl Pottery.

My opinion: The bird figurines are not good, but the bird ashtrays are attractive. There are some nice ashtrays decorated with fish (my favorite). A few favorites may be added to your general collection, but for the most part the products of this company can be passed over.

Product lines:
Stangl Birds, based on Audubon: not impressive. very pricey
dinnerware: red body, shows on bottom or interior
dinnerware: white body
dinnerware: some nice floral patterns, some nice bird pieces
art pottery vases and planters
wig stand: cute plus useful
gold washed vases and decorative pieces, not pretty
children’s dinnerware

Prices:
The birds are pricey.
Individual pieces of the dinnerware can be acquired fairly reasonably.

Collector’s Society: None.

The official company site is: None.

History
Martin Stangl purchased the Fulper Pottery in Flemington, New Jersey, in 1930. Dinnerware and household items on both a terra cotta and white clay body were produced. Sgrafitto techniques were used to show the red clay body through the bright colors of the painted decoration. Almost one hundred dinnerware patterns were produced over the forty-eight years the pottery was in production, as well as the birds and innumerable decorative wares.

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

Read more about porcelain collectibles in the Porcelain Collectibles Guide.

Hall China

Posted on November 15, 2011 by geekness

(pronunciation: as spelled)

This restaurant and commercial wares maker is still in business producing strong, one might say nearly indestructible, china, as well as lighter, non-commercial china. Some pieces of the institutional china are available on the retail market, and restaurant supply companies have Hall products available for sale. Although all the heavy products are available in white, many are available in some subset of the forty-seven colors eventually developed by this company for their proprietary firing method. In partnership with various tea and coffee companies of the past, Hall tea and coffee pots were given as premiums to purchasers, leading to an expansion in the number of shapes these useful pots came in. Refrigerators brought on the design and manufacture of refrigerator wares by the Hall Company, to be sold by the sellers of the appliances, like Sears and Montgomery Wards, as well as the makers of the appliances, like Westinghouse. The employment of Eva Zeisel as designer brought modern shapes and patterns into the Hall portfolio.

See Hall China.

My opinion: Beautiful strong colors on industrial strength restaurant wares. A collection of one shape in all the colors it came in would be interesting, as well as a collection of tea and coffee pot shapes. Or look at the various household patterns and shapes for inspiration for your collection.

Product lines:
in conjunction with Jewel Tea Company: Autumn Leaf
with Standard Coffee Company: Blue Bonnet
with Great American Tea Company: Orange Poppy
with Grand Union Tea Company: Red Poppy
with Cook Coffee: Silhouette
with Standard Coffee: Silhouette
with Sears Harmony House: Monticello, Mount Vernon
with General Electric, Sears, Hotpoint, Montgomery Ward, Westinghouse: refrigerator boxes and containers
novelty teapots
institutional and restaurant lines
Gold Decorated Line, including a World’s Fair design
Hallcraft Line, designed by Eva Zeisel, with many patterns

Prices:
Varies with new/used and retail venue. None really expensive.

Collector’s Society: http://www.hallchinacollectors.com/_sgg/f10000.htm

The official company site is: http://www.hallchina.com/ or http://www.hlcdinnerware.com/

History
Begun in 1903 to make toilet sets, white wares and jugs, the company developed a firing technique in 1911 where one high-temp fire bonded newly developed glazes to the china body. The results were highly durable and suitable for restaurants and institutions. Restaurant wares were followed by the Gold Decorated Teapot line. The company added decal decorated dinnerware in 1936, including kitchen items like mixing bowls, coffee and tea pots and refrigerator items on mostly modern shapes.

The most famous Hall pattern is Autumn Leaf, which debuted in 1933 on kitchen wares, and in 1936 on dinnerware. This patterns was so popular, Hall China sold decals to other companies to use on their ceramics. Eventually the pattern was dropped by the other companies, but Hall continued to make Autumn Leaf items until 1976. Since then special commissions in this pattern were made in 1990 at the request of China Specialties and also for the Hall Collector’s Club.

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

Read more about porcelain collectibles in the Porcelain Collectibles Guide.

A Book Review: Southwestern Pottery: Anasazi to Zuni, by Allan Hayes and John Blom

Posted on November 2, 2011 by geekness

Although I have a small collection of Southwestern pottery myself, I was looking for a book that could show and tell me more. I found this one, and I want to tell you about it. It is well worth the price and the space it will take in your library.

This is not a scholarly tome, nor is it an exhibit catalog. It is the pottery collection accrued by four average citizens using reasonable amounts of money to pursue a new interest. From knowing nothing to writing this book, the two couples spent a few years looking at pottery, buying some, and learning from other collectors and pottery experts. The pottery they purchased includes both modern, mostly, and some antique specimen.

The story of their pursuit makes a nice backdrop to the bulk of the book, which is pages of photographs of the pottery they now own. Each pueblo or pottery community is presented separately, with from nine to twenty pots posed together on the facing page. Some pueblos have several ages, those with long traditions of pottery, while others have only one or two photographs and accompanying text because of their dearth of pottery historically and/or in modern times.

To provide a foundation in prehistoric pottery, the book begins with pictures and descriptions of the older pottery sources, the Mogollon, Anasazi, Cibola, Hohokam, Salado, White Mountain, Hopi and Sinaqua and Casas Grande. Each of these antique types of pottery is presented in two pages, one full page color picture of the pieces the authors have purchased, and the facing page with a brief discussion of the area in which the pottery is found and what makes it different from other pottery types.

Modern pottery is then discussed in the same two page format, where the right hand page is a photograph of many pots, and the left hand page carries the discussion of the pottery pictured. Some modern pottery locations require more that a single pair of pages. If a site requires more than one set of pages, the pottery and write-up is divided by time period within modern developments, and by family of potters where strong family traditions hold sway.

The Pueblos and other settlements presented include the following, and are presented in alphabetical order:

Acoma
Casas Grande/Mata Ortiz
Chochiti
Hopi
Isleta
Jemez
Laguna
Maricopa and Pima
Mojave
Nambe
Navajo
Pojoaque
Sandia
San Felipe
San Ildefonso
San Juan
Santa Ana
Santa Clara
Santo Domingo
Taos and Picuris
Tesuque
Tohono O’odham
Zia
Zuni
The Others

The advantage of having the pots grouped together in photographs are several, including making the relative size of the pieces immediately obvious. It also makes it easier to see general trends in pot decoration as they are discussed on the facing page. These are not the large museum pots that require photography-in-the-round to see them properly, but pots of a size to display in one’s home. If the pots were photographed individually, the book would be much larger than the satisfying 189 pages it is.

After a brief section of definitions of the types of pottery, the authors keep their use of technical terms to a minimum. There are opening chapters about the general geographic area Southwest pottery comes from, and some discussion of the authors criteria for buying a pot. Their “rules” are quite down-to-earth, and yet the resulting collection is quite impressive. And, as the authors pointed out, pottery is one form of art that is readily available to regular people whether they live in the Southwest or not.

For those of us who do not aim to the rarefied heights of the great collections of the world, the approach for this book and the collection on which it is based is very welcome. Even people of modest means can create collections of note, and the information they discover in the process is worth writing down for someone else to understand the collection as a whole and in detail. If you want only one book on Southwest pottery, I think it should be this one.

Southwestern Pottery: Anasazi to Zuni
by Allan Hayes and John Blom
Northland Publishing
1996

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

Southwest Pottery: Mata Ortiz

Posted on October 6, 2011 by geekness

Mata Ortiz is actually a town in the northern Chihuahua State of Mexico. From this town a whole new type of Southwestern pottery is emerging. The style of the hand-built pottery and its fine decoration make this pottery an exciting addition to the traditional forms we have seen for a hundred years or more.

The Story of Mata Ortiz Pottery

Now seeing the emergence of the third generation of Mata Ortiz potters, this style began in 1960s with a man named Juan Quezada. It is most unusual in the ceramic world to be able to identify the beginning of any style, but in this case the Twentieth Century’s avocation of record keeping comes in handy. From this one man’s experiments with local clays, firing techniques and methods of decorating the pottery has come a whole village of potters turning out beautiful works, and their receiving the recognition from the art world from the beginning.

The Mata Ortiz pots are made from clays and methods that leave the leather stage absolutely smooth and able to take the finest lines in their decoration. And the fine lines are used to delineate areas for decoration in geometric-like shapes, but the style of the Mata Ortiz frequently does not extend the same decoration all over the pot. Considerable variation may be found on a single large pot, although smaller ones may have a uniform decoration.

Red versus Black Pottery

Mr. Quezada and the potters who follow his lead have discovered the differences between aerobic and anaerobic firing techniques, and the changes in the resulting pots. The same form and decoration, red and black on a cream colored pot using the aerobic method, turns shiny and matte black on a pot fired using the reducing (anaerobic) method. Thus the Mata Ortiz pots can be found in either coloration.

Mata Ortiz pottery is recognized by the art and craft world as the fine work it is, and therefore there are substantial prices involved when the pots are large or when they are made by known potters. The small pots have reasonable prices, and pieces by new potters are less expensive. Look for one or two you like and watch their expertise grow as they continue to make pottery over time. Or pick a motif you like and buy from many potters as this Southwest pottery continues to grow and evolve.

See more Mata Ortiz Pottery.

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