0dd one out

These four shape 713 egg cups are the final lot I won at the Harvey Collection sale. The odd one out is LD pattern painted by Gwen Dry, the other 3 are AQ pattern and all painted by Hilda Trim.

Bringing up the rear

This egg cup arrived too late to be included in the photo of all my DD pattern pots.  Shape number 290 it was painted by Iris Skinner.

Cracked Egg Cup

This early Carter Stabler and Adams egg cup is made from a light brown clay, marked with shape number 289 and /A/GE.  I liked it enough to buy it despite it having a cracked rim perhaps as a result of someone missing their egg and bashing it with their spoon.

Scotland Envy

The increased media focus this week, on the Scotland's independence vote, has prompted me again to make an inappropriate mix of pot and politics.  I think more than anything, with the opinion polls narrowing, it's the sense of the British state mustering all of it's resources to defend the union, that makes me want to (quite ineffectually) react against it.  I'm not Scottish, and I've only been to Scotland once.  I don't have a romantic view of Scotland, and I've never seen "Braveheart", but if the Scots vote yes, I think moving north of the boarder would be a very attractive option.
I'll be taking my pots with me of course, including this sweet EQ pattern egg cup Dorothy James in the early 1930's.

Six Pack

Happy Easter! These "Circus Tent" WL Pattern egg cups arrived from ebay just in time.  All painted by Hilda Trim in the late 1920's or early '30's.

M

This pattern (M) I have never seen before, and  I bet it wasn't made in big numbers, as those little black circles would have been a devil to draw. Can't wait until next weekend when there'll be time for breakfast.

Jumping the Queue

These wonderful egg cups landed on my doorstep only yesterday, after been sold by a fellow collector, who  had found them a few years earlier on eBay.com, listings in the US.  I was a stranger to this yellow and brown chevron pattern six months ago, but now, although I know its rare, I seem to be collecting more and more of it.  These two are marked DL, the others pots I have are marked YM, theres no logic to it but you can have a look at the others here and here.

Bonus Eggcup

This CN pattern eggcup was the other good pot in the Cottees job lot.  

JL Pattern Egg Cups

I was really pleased to find these on eBay.  Painted by Marjorie Batt in the late 1920's or early 30's, this simple pattern, with the yellow and grey, is very effective.  It's also not a pattern I'd seen before and  it suits an egg cup very well, as it looks pretty much like the cartoon broken edges of an egg shell, with of course yolk yellow inside.  Originally there would have been one more companion, together with a matching tray.  

Unfortunately though,  it's not just the egg sells that have that been cracked in the past and each pot has quite bad damage.  So a bit of a disappointment when they arrived in the post, but the seller at least agreed to refund half the cost, and I am now spurred on to find the missing (and in my dreams perfect) fourth pot.

Poole Pottery Art Deco Egg Cups and Tray TO Pattern

I've got a bit of a backlog of recent Poole acquisitions, but this one has jumped the queue.  How happy would you be to wake up to your breakfast eggs served in these little beauties.  I know that I'd be well chuffed.

Painted by Nellie Bishton between 1927 and 1934.

Guy Sydenham Green Island Egg Cup

This salt glazed stoneware egg cup was thrown by Guy Sydenham during the time that he lived on Green Island  in Poole Harbour (1968-88), with clay found on the island and sold at a craft shop in Corfe village.
Collecting is a slippery slope.  It starts with the idea "I wouldn't mind one of those", but then one, quickly becomes two, and before you know it its a whole new collection.  These pots made by Guy Sydenham are about the only thing at the moment that I'm collecting (there you go) that doesn't have a Poole Pottery mark.

Twintone C54

This set of four, Streamline, Twintone egg cups came from eBay.  They are in the Sepia and Mushroom colour pairing coded C54, which is just about my least favourite, but was the first glaze pair put together at Poole back in 1936.  The Streamline Tableware shapes were designed by John Adams a year before.

I think, when collecting anything, you start to get ideas about how the collection should look - it's probably not possible to get an example of everything ever produced so you have to be a bit selective. With Twintone I have my favourite colour combination - in which I would like every shape, and I decided to collect one shape in which I'd like to get every colour.  This started out with preserve jars, where the lids are one colour the bodies another.  I was a bit uneasy though, as with this way of separating the colours, there was nothing really to keep the right coloured lid on the right base.  It's taken me a while to come round to a change of plan, but I've now settled on egg cups, where the two colours are all on the same piece and here you get 4 for your money and a tray thrown in too.

Twintone C100

Twintone Streamline egg cups Peach Bloom and Mist Blue (C100) colour combo, in production from 1953 to 1954.

Traditional Poole from Doncaster Racecourse Antiques Fair

This matched pair of egg cups came from the antiques fair at Doncaster this summer, as did the jug below. The egg cups are shape number 713 and the pattern is RE.  They were made several years apart, are by different painters, sightly different sizes and one was cracked.  So I didn't feel guilty about splitting them and selling the cracked one.

The Jug is shape number 304 (5 inches tall) and is painted in the relatively uncommon HQ pattern by Nellie Bishton.

Traditional Poole Geometric Pattern Pot

This is a funny little thing. Its painted in LD Pattern by Ruth Gough sometime between 1927 and 34. It's small enough to be an egg cup just under 2 inches tall, but its not the usual Poole egg cup shape. When I First saw it I thought it was identical in shape to the one posted on 6 February, but that one (shape no 118) is a quarter inch taller. The shape number on this one is a bit indistinct but I think its 228. Making sense of the shape numbers on Poole of this period isn't easy at all. and its possible there is not sense to them. Clearly I'm missing something!