There are so many collectors of salt and pepper shakers that hundreds of pairs are introduced each year in an effort to capture their money. And this is not a new phenomenon. For decades or longer, the production of cute S&P shakers has kept the collector scurrying to find the best additions to their collection.
Vintage S&P shakers only have the virtue of being slightly older. They were produced in similar quantities as those made today. Vintage shakers may have actually been used a time or two, as the ethos of the time they were produced was inclined to the useful and not saving things for themselves. So the Santa S&P shakers were brought out at Christmas and put on the table, even if not salt or pepper was ever put in them.
Vintage S&P shakers are made from all the materials available, practically, including china and porcelain, glass, wood, plastic, pottery and “chalk”. Any materials that can hold a shape and the salt or pepper probably had S&P shakers made from it. Paper and cardboard might be the exceptions, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
The beauty of making S&P shakers is all you need is a pair of figures with some relationship, and poke holes in the top before they are fired the first time. They already come with a holes in the bottom. Make the mold so it is small enough to use a cork plug, and you are in business. From figurine to shakers in one easy step. And you add a whole different audience for your products.
You will find many vintage S&P shakers were made in Occupied Japan and will be marked so. Japanese shakers from other times will be marked Japan or Nippon. Or not marked at all. Fine porcelain and glass makers marked their products, but there are a high percentage of shakers with no mark at all, or only a mold mark. Finding out who made these shakers can be a lesson in history and geography as you look for the point of origin of the S&P shakers. As you look for more information, beware you do not become a ceramic canister collector as well.
Glass shakers often had a metal screw-on top, either of pot metal or various degrees of silver or silver plating. A pair of shakers found at a garage sale or thrift store with black metal tops may turn out to be a treasure, if carefully cleaned, or just another pair of cheap plated tops. The quality of the glass may give you a hint which way the discovery might go.
Porcelain S&P shakers are usually of the one piece kind, holes made in the top and a cork to plug the bottom. A china maker may take the same shape and decorate it to match many china patterns, just as plates and bowls of the same shape are used for many china patterns. If you like a particular manufacturer and cannot see collecting sets of china or even a serving piece or plate from each pattern you like, a salt or pepper for each pattern may be a viable option. Orphan shakers that have lost their partner are considered by most to be value-less, and should be very inexpensive on the secondary market.
Collecting S&P shakers by theme can bring you many seasonal and holiday ornaments to rotate on display as the year makes its annual progression around the sun. Fruits and vegetables for last summer and fall, flowers in the spring, all the holiday motifs for mid-winter, birds to fill in as needed. Collecting these table ornaments can get you a lot of seasonal decoration in a little storage space for those not on display. If you are more ambitious, you can collect seasonal ceramic kitchen canisters to match the salt and pepper shakers.
More information about collecting other kinds of porcelain is available * here *.
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