A Jam-Packed 200th Post - Plate Mysteries Revealed!

We'll get to the picture of the dog, and why she appears so content, in just a minute.

I have information for you about those plates! From no less a personage than the president of the Transferware Collectors Club. (I am adding a link to the Blog Roll on the sidebar). But, and I know the suspense has got to be nearly unbearable, first here are some pictures I took today with my NEW CAMERA. This is like your relatives making you flip through their snaps of their vacation before they will give you dinner.

A word about this camera and its origins.

Whusband was informed (by me, of course) that I wanted a new camera for Christmas. Christmas morning, when he was embarrassed by the fact that he had no present for me to open (my Dad and stepmom were here so there was an audience for his badness) he said he had bought "us" a camera "to share." This is code for, "I bought myself a camera and I am pretending in the presence of your family that I got it for you." Well, the joke was on him because it came while he was away and I promptly popped in a memory card and took it up to Jay Peak for a hike, but not before I took pictures of Maisy sitting in the forbidden chair. (She's not even supposed to be in the living room, but, as I say, Whusband was away. Oh, and I turned up the heat too).

So, our first photo today is Maisy in a mellow mood in a comfy chair in a warm house.

Below we have, again, (sorry) the woods at Jay Peak, as they appeared at around 3 PM today. Cold and snowy again here today. In fact, it was so cold that the MP3 player that was pumping out aerobically motivating music stopped working about halfway through my walk, frozen apparently. The camera kept on, however.





Plate News

Thanks to all those visitors from the Transferware Collectors Club who dropped by to take my plate identification challenge (see the last post). I know from my stats that we had lots of people come and look at the last post, which set forth the challenge, but only one answer came. Fortunately it was a really good answer and it is from Loren Zeller who identifies himself as president of the TCC.

Hi Susan (he meant "Kim"), I tried posting this comment on your blogger site, but it didn't take. As an old New Englander transplanted to Arizona, your lovely winter woods pix makes me nostalgic, not enough to move back, but to wish for a short visit!
I am responding to your transferware posting on our TCC site. The patterns on your pieces are what we refer to as Romantic patterns and would have been made during the mid 1800's. Many of them were made for export to the US and Canada. It's not my area of collecting focus, but a quick pass through some of my reference books has helped me to identify all but the last platter. So, here is what I can tell you:
Plate # 1 is "Carrara" made by John Holland, Clay Hills Pottery, Tunstall, c. 1852-54.
Plate # 2 is "Pagoda", by Enoch Wood and Sons.
Platter # 1 is "Friburg" by William Davenport, although the pattern was also made by G. Phillips.
Platter #2 is "Isola Bella" by William Adams & Son.
These were all "series" patterns meaning that the central pattern would usually be different for every different shape (platter versus plate versus veg. bowl, etc.) What is consistent in series TW is the border and often the border is the easiest way to identify these patterns as they are often similar to others.
Enjoy your auction purchase! Do join our club and enjoy all its benefits like the pattern database and the bulletin! And, stay warm.
Best, Loren Zeller, TCC President.

Thanks Loren. Send me your email address and I will send you the PRIZE. Which will be this:



Just a teacup - maybe a coffee cup? Perhaps Loren knows. The pattern is "Minuet" by WM Adams & Son England. I think it is very fetching and since it has now served as a prize it can be known as the first Woolfoot Transferware Identification Cup.

If anyone knows what that last platter is, weigh in and maybe there's teacup in it for you too.

Here it is again:



Show the Dog Again!

OK, OK. Here she is.

Hello From the Snow. May I Show You Some Plates?

Oooooh but it was cold and windy on Saturday morning here on the US side of the Canadian border! I, nontheless, got up and out of the Last House and out onto the trails at dear old Jay Peak just as the sun was coming up. The wind had scoured a lower, exposed section of the trail clean down the grass and it was blowing so hard in my face that I almost turned back. Intrepid middle-aged broad that I am, however, I knew if I got into the woods it would be OK, and so it was. As you can see, I didn't have the benefit of a matched pair of gloves on this hike. I combined a pair from the dollar store on one hand and used the superior single glove on the other. When I got to the highest point on my walk I was nice and warm and stopped to snap this picture for myself and you all. Thanks for stopping by.



About the Plates

Shackleton and I spent a happy New Year's Day at the "high end" auction at my beloved Degre Auction House in Westfield. (See the link on the side bar). Shackleton got two wooden boxes(we both liked them) and I bought all manner of things. We were there for hours! My very favorite items were two groups of some old, very old, plates and platters. I am going to ask at the experts Transferware Collectors Club to swing by here and help me to identify some of the patterns (their website says posting a URL is the best was to ask for this info. and I happen to have one). So, if you are bored by old plates, I guess you can go now.



I am just in love with this item. I would really like to know more about it (which is where those hoped-for experts come in). There are no maker's marks whatever on the back. It's about 10 and half inches in diameter and is some kind of vegetable bowl. It's about an inch and a half or two inches deep. Lovely, no? Here's a bit more detail. I don't think we're in England here - Greece or Rome?

Urns repeat around the edge:

I want to look at this all the time. I like it that much. I put it in my bedroom, for cripes sake. Taking these pictures, however, did reveal what, to my eye, is the, what shall I say, "slightly unfortunate" appearance of the young girl figure. Perhaps she and her dog are going to her mother, or Athena or whomever that lady is supposed to be, for some sympathy?

I also got this, clearly marked "Pagoda" by EW&S (which I know is "Enoch Woods and Sons"). The mark was in use, I learned at the potteries.org website (link in the sidebar) between 1818 and 1846. Also nice. Is it a dinner plate? It's about 10 and a half inches in diameter so I think it may be, but perhaps it a serving plate?





Pattern Identification Challenge

In another lot, I picked up these three lovely old platters. How about a little quiz for you experts? Non experts, feel free to admire these (or not) and then go read someone else's more amusing or informative blog. All remaining, consider yourselves put to to the test.

Two of these are marked by their makers and have a pattern name. One has no makers mark at all. If anyone gets the two marked ones right, I'll certainly be happy to believe you about the third one. Any information would be gratefully received, of course. Really helpful people might even be rewarded with a little treasure from my store house. Do you hear that! Prizes! Here are the pictures. Ready, steady, GO!

Here's Number 1:





2.



3.



Sorry the pictures aren't better. I had to use a flash. Write if you need more (or better pictures). Thanks for sharing.

Have I Mentioned About My Bad Taste and Tacky Habit of Naming Prices That I Paid for Stuff?

OK, let me put down my banner and my flamethrower. Whew. Those were heavy.

Now that I have blazed my way through that Snowboard thing (see the last post) we can get back to talking about junk that I have acquired. I am pleased to tell you that I have just passed through a particularly charmed junking period. Oh wait, I think I need to start calling my finds "trouvailles". This occurred to me last night as I was reading a biography ofJoseph Cornell. If you are not familiar with Joseph Cornell, the Amazon.Com review of this book sums him up this way: "Joseph Cornell (1903-72) lived in Queens with a domineering mother and severely handicapped brother while creating unique, haunting art: boxes filled with lovingly assembled objects and printed images."

In other words, Cornell bought junk (that he loved, as I do), and made art (as I don't, although I do blog about it). Andre Breton was doing the same thing over across the pond in the 1920s and '30s, while Cornell was prowling the streets of New York. Breton called his junk trouvailles and his manipulations of it made him famous.

I am not planning on making shadow boxes or collages and I have only a little sympathy for the surrealists but I am with them on the mysterious allure of old objects. Also, I would like to justify this acquisitiveness of mine as a form of art and a French word can help me along that road.

So, shall we take a little tour of recent Woolfoot trouvailles?



Let's begin with these glasses. I picked these up on a quick trip into Burlington about a week ago, in the household goods section of Recycle North, a charity shop cum workshop cum environmental advocacy organization in the People's Republic of Burlington. (I say that with all possible affection). I love Recycle North. The same day I shopped so happily there I also took a quick trip through Macy's. "Oh. Retail." I thought to myself. "I remember this". I admired the shiny floors and elaborate Christmas decorations and sales people in ties and skirts.

I admired but I did not buy. Better for me the cement floors and jumbled shelves and the tattooed and pierced staff at the Household Goods store. But back to our objects. These beautiful silver rimmed Champagne glasses (that's what they are, I have decided) were 25 cents apiece. I bought a water glass, there was only one, in a similar style. It weighs about half a pound and must be crystal. It was 50 cents. Also a bone china coffee cup (25 cents). I picked up a boxed set of Cocktail Piano jazz, circa 1970. This looked really promising. The set has five albums, all of them in pristine condition. I didn't notice til I got them home that they had been produced by Reader's Digest. Not a good sign. I played the first one. Think: background music for restaurant scenes between Darrin and Mr. Stevens on Bewitched. I wanted Marian McPartland I got Montovani. Well, you pay your 50 cents you take your chances.

I also picked up a few other vinyl records for 25 cents apiece. Both were traditional choral music from England and New England etc. Both, also, unfortunately, had a little damage. But, looking on the bright side, since I have managed to listen to most of both of them a couple of times (only a few songs skip), I am already ahead of what it would have cost to play even a couple of songs a jukebox once.

Of course, not many jukes have traditional English carols on offer. If they did, I suppose it would cost a lot to play them since your average bar or pizza place would probably be cleared of its customers within the first stanza.



I also got this Vernon Kilns of California vegetable dish in the brown-eyed Susan pattern. Frankly, I don't like it much but I know some people do. It's on offer over at Ebay right now. We'll see if the $10 asking price comes through. If it does, my whole day's Recycle North shopping will be covered with about $3.50 in profit. If I don't sell it, that's OK too. It is a handy size.



Let's move onto another one of my favorite haunts, Degre Auction House in nearby Westfield, Vermont. They were having an "indoor garage sale" to clear out their back room this weekend in advance of their regular Sunday auction.

The kids and I stopped in on Saturday morning to preview Sunday's goods and check out the clearance items. Of course, we managed to find a few things to buy at the garage sale. Among various prizes for the kids (a "peace bear" beanie baby for both of them and a vintage '70s Dairy Queen Tumbler in red and yellow for the Understudy) I snagged the "Made in Japan" Scottie Dog at the top of this post and this beautiful Wedgwood "Napoleon Ivy" soup bowl. I think that set me back 50 cents. The bowl is also on Ebay now, mostly because it doesn't nest easily and though I love it I don't really need it. Thrill of the hunt and all. The Scottie was shoehorned into the breakfront. He's staying.


And how about these two-faced salt shakers? Odd and scary, but in a totemic kind of way, no? They are, I think, survivors from prewar Japan. I love my photos of them that I have posted here and now wish I hadn't put them up on Ebay shortly after I got them home. Someone has already bid $5.99 so I guess I have to part with them. Silly me.

We went back to the auction house on Sunday morning for the main event. The auction was not as crowded as usual, and I wondered why. The goods on offer were, largely, an unappealing mass of 1990s "collectibles", which may have kept down attendance, or maybe it's the scary economy. In any case, there were still some gems to be found and I got one of them. It what may be my best buy to date, I picked up 48 pieces of this China by Royal Swan in Staffordshire. Behold:



These date from around 1950. There are a couple of chips on some of the saucers and one teacup is missing but otherwise I have the whole nearly mint service for 8, complete with platter and creamer and sugar bowl in all its genuine-22-karat-gold glory. Delivered price (I hope you are sitting down): $10, or $11.66 with buyer's premium and tax.

We were having company for tea that day, our lovely English friends. They had gone to the auction (on my recommendation) before we got there and left pretty quickly, no doubt put off by the hideous 90s dreck. They were charmingly and gratifyingly amazed by my China bargain. I had, of course, spread it out to maximum advantage for their visit.



Oh, I forgot to mention that on Saturday the kids and I also hit a library book sale at the beautiful and famous cross-border Haskell Free library in Stanstead, Quebec and Derby Line, Vermont. (There is a line on the wood floor indicating the international boundary). There, I got a folio sized collection of the works of Joseph Conrad with some great woodcuts (1942), a biography of Stephen Leacock,one of Evelyn Waugh, and my current reading, the life of Joseph Cornell, as previously described. Also a book on the St. Lawrence River for Shackleton (one of his middle names is "Lawrence" so he has a particular interest). Another $2 well spent, wouldn't you say?

I have been blogging late into the night, waiting for my Dad and Stepmom to arrive. They have, apparently, gone to the bed and breakfast where they are staying and won't be here til morning (with all this junk there is hardly room for visitors in the guest room). They have traveled here from New York for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow, which we are hosting and which will also be attended by our Oxford friends (who missed the China, poor them).

I am already feeling thankful, "for all that we have received [...]". I hope you are too. I pray a Thanksgiving blessing on all of your heads.

How it Was Made - 1930s Wedgwood etc.

Just a quick post here to share a web discovery I just made over at the Potteries website: I'll post a link over on my favorites list.

Being that I come home a couple of times a month with a bag full of old pottery, and that lots of this stuff is English, I am frequently over at The Potteries website doing a little research. It's a great resource chock-a-block with free info. about the famous potteries of North Staffordshire. I am not sure how the site is funded but they are doing a great job informing the public about one of England's seminal industries and still one of its most important. Next time someone puts an old plate in front of you, maybe at Thanksgiving, you might want to flip it over and check out the mark. If you can remember anything about it next time you are at your computer, take that scrap of information to their website and you might find out some fascinating bit of history about your dinnerware (or not, but why not try).

One fabulous aspect of the site is that it includes among its riches some period publications on how the pottery was made. Remember poor Charles Dickens at the glue factory? No children in evidence by the time we get to the 1930s but look at the circles around the eyes of the Einstein figure:



Looking through the 22 cards that show Wedgwood manufacture, probably in the 1920s, maybe the '30s, you get a glimpse right back into the industrial revolution. Ditto the brochure from the Parrot &Co. factory of 1936. No wonder the early 20th century involved that huge and cataclysmic divide between bosses



and workers.



Smile everyone, smile - hold still...

Don't these pictures tell a tale of a vanished world? (good riddance too). Check out the state of the window by our lady transferring a print to a plate. I don't think Dickens got a window, so I guess it probably represented a general improvement in conditions.



And what a copywriter! Who'd have thunk of dishmaking as involving any "plunging" or "attacking"? Not I, until now.

What a lot of sweat, dirt and labor went into making pretty dishes.

Not That You Asked, But Here's What I Did Today - Check Out the World's Coolest Teapot

Back to the Stowe Rec Path this AM. I know, I know, you've seen one path winding through the woods you've seen 'em all. Move on. Yawn. Sorry, by every time I get there for a walk I am struck again by how beautiful it is and snap, snap, snap. I must photograph it. I'll post these few and then we'll have a moratorium on bike path pictures for a bit.



This charming little edifice is one of the nice little surprises of the path. It's a memorial to somebody. I think I would prefer this to a tombstone for my own self when the time comes.



Onto each beautiful bike path a substation must fall.



Remember what I said about some of the local maple trees rushing into their fall colors? It was true.


It was not a work day for me today but in an uncharacteristic show of effort, I went to the office anyway. Mostly I went in to fill out a time sheet and an expense report but I also checked email and phone messages. Oh, and on the way out of town, it occurred to me that I had just time enough before it was time for my son's dental appointment to stop by my favorite antique store, M. Lewis of Waterbury.

Talk about Aladdin's Cave! "M" stands for Martha and she and I had a nice chat over my purchase of the most beautiful teacup in the world back in April. She wasn't there today; the store is usually manned (resist snide comment here) by her helper. While he was wrapping up my teapot and plate (coming up in just a moment) he told me that Martha's weakness, the one that eventually led her into the antiques trade and this store, was for teacups and teapots. I sensed she was a kindred soul...



This is just one of several tea cup displays in her shop. It's like a kind of pornography for me.



My grandparents had this same bit of needlework on the wall of their dining room for as long as they had a dining room. My mother and her twin sister bought it for them when they were little girls. I am tempted each time I go in the shop to buy it. I always think, well, that's pretty good, isn't it? Is more ambition than that necessary or even desirable? Dime store profundity. Sign me up. Except now that this is out of Woolworth's and in an antique store it costs 35 dollars. I'll make do with the picture...


And, at last, today's purchases. Yes, another plate. Didn't I ask someone to stop me before I bought another plate? Of course, none of you few dear readers was around to stay my grasp. This lovely old "flow brown" platter just called to me and I answered the call. I don't know if there is such a thing as "flow brown" but the blurring of the image makes me think it isn't transfer ware or that it is some particular flowy kind of transfer ware. It has a great horking crack in it to, which accounts for it's thirty dollar price tag (undamaged it would have been a lot more). I got them to knock three dollars off the price in combo with the teapot, which also got a three dollar discount off its 20 dollar price;




et enfin, the teapot. I defy anyone to say that this is not a super cool teapot that could have been owned by Gladys Peto (see the sidebar) or Buck Rogers or someone similarly fabulous and or fictional. It is English, no doubt dating from the 20s and 30s. It is crazed and stained and has a little scrape on the lid, but the shape, oh the shape. Watch out! It may take flight at any moment.



This teapot, maybe with a better picture, is going to have to find a place in the sidebar, it is just that wonderful.

Here, by way of a postscript, is a poor little picture of the Made in Japan bookends I picked up at that other little antique shop I wrote about recently. That place is basically a junk shop without pretensions to being anything else and the prices reflect that sensibility. These were, some of you may recall, 2 dollars.



And last, but not least, this is the book I have been reading, page by page, for the last several weeks. You know how I am about Handsome Books. Isn't this a beauty? It may have more detail about Alfred than we care to know (all those "Ethels", i.e., Ethelbald, Ethelred, Ethelbert, Ethelswith, Ethelthis, Ethelthat); but it is actually very well written by a lady Oxford scholar. It is ex at least two libraries; the Craftsbury Academy Library and the Bolton Public Library. I bought it at the book sale at the Stowe Library, though I don't think it was in their collection. Another 2 dollars well spent.