Minature

This salt dish (shape 570) measures just just 4 cm tall.  It's decorated with the same PB pattern that can be found covering 25 cm tall vases, but Dorothy James has painted it in miniature to great effect. 

Demitasse

I've spent many hours, scrolling through eBay, trying to find full-sized, and usable, twin-tone tea cups.  They are so hard to find, because they are so massively outnumbered by, and look just the same as, their coffee sized brothers.  The impractical demitasses that survive so well, unused for years, in a thousand china cabinets.
But for once is was the diminutive size of this coffee cup, saucer and cake plate that caught my eye as a buy-it-now lot on eBay last year.  The 5 cm tall cup (shape number 664) and the saucer (665) were painted by Ruth Pavely in the EE pattern which does look at it's absolute best on this scale.  And though it's size and fine crazing make it impractical for use, it is ideal for display in my own china cabinet.
The soft focus on the photo isn't deliberate, but does perhaps quite suit this romantic and rather useless little cup

Studland

This Studland pattern coffee pot came together with a few cups and saucers and a sugar bowl.  I don't have room to display those other pieces, but the coffee pot looks good standing among other decorative, less functional ware. Studland tableware was designed by Harold Stabler in 1930 and the shapes were clearly influenced by his earlier work as a silversmith. The apple green glaze was created by John Adams. 

Double D

Here's another shape 293, painted in DD pattern by Phyllis Way.  DD is one of my favorite geometric border patterns.  To my knowledge it's also the only one with red glaze (referred to as crimson in the pattern books).

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.

Why?

Maybe it's just me compensating for my cat allergy, but for a while now I thought it might be an idea to fill my dinner table with animal shaped crockery.   These Royal Daulton Bunnykins Country Cottage butler cream jug and baker preserve jar were at the Wetherby race course antiques fair a couple of weeks a go.  They are now serving tea regularly at our house.  I've my friend, who was with me at the time, to thank for giving me the encouragement or courage to buy them!

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.

All the Ds

These DD pattern pots are arriving thick and fast, an egg cup arrived in the post yesterday, so this photo doesn't quite show all of them.

DD DD DD

And yet another DD pattern pot, It's the same shape of cream jug that would have accompanied the sugar shaker posted yesterday.  Shape 329 has quire a classical look to my eyes and the pattern fits really nicely on the shoulders. Painted by Gertie Warren between 1922 and 1927, it arrived with me from eBay last week.

DD DD

I've coveted sugar sifters for a while now, and been outbid on them  a few times.  So it was nice to win this one in the DD pattern.  The shape number is 759 I think, and it was painted Clarice Heath in the early 1930's.

Real Love?

I do worry that this blog might give an impression that there is only room in my heart for small ceramic objects.  Of course, that isn't really true: I was touched tonight by the John Lewis penguin Real Love Xmas ad.
John Lewis must love making money, but I think they could have manipulated me so much better if only they had thought to include just one gay or lesbian couple beside the four or five (six, I think including the penguins) heterosexual couples shown in the ad.  I would have got my wallet out for that. But maybe they had thought of it, and thought that maybe gay love, isn't after all "real love"! Now, that's not very festive of you JL.
Anyway these guys say it better http://www.blgbt.org/is-it-real-love/ And sticking to what I do best - it's a little cream jug 326/GT.

More Ruth Pavely

This CA pattern jug (shape no. 377), like the salt dish in the last post, was also painted by Ruth Pavely in about 1922.

Sweet

This salt pot was painted by Ruth Pavely at the start of her career at Poole in 1922.  EU pattern, shape number 299, and just over one inch tall.

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.

Be Careful What You Wish For

A couple of posts ago (leaky), I was bemoaning the crack on the side of the EE pattern soup cup I'd bought from eBay and wishing that another would turn up.  And then behold, they appear, in the least expected place, and with matching saucers too!
I  was in the Yorkshire Dales with my partner last weekend, and late on Sunday afternoon, walked through a village at the bottom of Wensleydale called West Burton.  West Burton only has one pub and one shop, and while we made good use of the pub,  it was in the antiques shop that I found these soup cups.
They were painted  in TK pattern during the early 1930's by Marjorie Cryer, and there are seven in total. The six above are made from red clay and one of those has a broken handle, glued back on.  The seventh is made from white clay with a pink coloured base, which dates it to a couple of years later (it's still painted by Marjorie Cryer), and it has slightly different decoration on the handles.  So I imagine the original owner of the set must have purchased this seventh cup as a replacement at a time when they were still quite new.

Original

 Replacement

How Could I?

How could I have forgotten to post a picture of this little jug.  My pottery buying has slowed down a bit this past month of so, but luckily I've found this photos to post and there are quite a few similarly forgotten photos in waiting.  This one is XK pattern, shape 324, painted in the late 1920's or early 30's by someone using a share as their mark, who's contribution to Poole, perhaps like the jug, has also been overlooked.

Leaky

Unfortunately this very sweet  EE patern soup cup painted by Ruth Pavely has a couple of deep hairline cracks.  It was only ever big enough to hold a ladle full of soup and now it cant even do that.  Shape number 859, I'd love to find another one.

eBay's Finest

The little bee that forms the finial of the honey box got me thinking about all of eBay's busy bees who put in so much effort to describe their lots in every detail, photograph them from every angle, and then post them so quickly to the winning bidders. All at the cost of postage and done in peoples spare time, no doubt, juggled about work and other commitments.
The honey box arrived yesterday.  I won it at a real-life auction held by Burstall and Hewett about 6 weeks ago (with an online bid of course).  Paid for the same day, it still took several phone calls and emails to get it here, even 6 weeks later and at a cost of postage far more then I've ever paid on eBay. And now it's arrived it turns out that there are several small chips, including one to the lovely bee finial, that were not described in the condition report.

Missing Letters

A small plate 6 inch diameter, I think the shape number is 199 and the pattern DC.  There's a similar pattern with red triangles that has the code DD hilda-trim-jam-pot. So as ever with Poole pattern codes we're left wondering, where are DA and DB? or maybe that just me.