My Fine Four Fendered Friends

Sometimes I don't quite appreciate how special something is until it's photographed and posted on here. Which is how it's been with these Carter tiles.  When I found seven of them at the Newark Fair yesterday, I was pretty underwhelmed really, but brought them just because they were cheap.  Looking at them now, I think they have a real 1960's period charm and were a rare find.  

Margaret Mathews designed the set of six (I've got one to swap if anyone's interested), screen printed  tiles in 1960.  They're each six inches square and the set is titled Veteran Cars and numbered VC1 to VC6. They're all in pristine condition and at Newark still carried their shop label below, stuck to the front of one of them and telling a sad story of remaindered stock, even after the price cut from 36 to 27 shillings.  After allowing for 52 years of inflation I still got them at half price.

A very slippery slope

My first tile on Monday and by the end of the week ten of these arrive in the post.  I knew I shouldn't have started. This is a screen printed 10 cm Carter tile with a pattern designed by Ivor Kamlish sometime between 1958 and 64. 

Carter tile

I know I'm on a slippery slope here.  This tile was made at Poole in the late 1950's or 1960's, I'm yet to decide which. I think tile production was the most profitable area for Poole for much, if not all, of the pottery's history.  It's not something I know much about and until this week I've not collected a single tile. The trouble is I know more will now follow.