A long search rewarded

John Adams designed his Streamline coffee pots/hot water jugs in 3 sizes.  I've had the largest (7 1/2" tall) and smallest (5" tall) in my favourite C95 Twintone colours for quite a while, but until last week the middle sized pot (5 3/4" Tall) had eluded me.

Chicken brick?

I remember keeping a lookout for one of these twin-tone butter boxes for quite a while before finding this one. I really loved it's Tupperware looks - not a bit like pottery really -so it's not helping at all with my current feelings of ceramic cold turkey.
It must be well over a week since I last found any Poole Pottery, but I am hoping to make up for this next weekend.  Cottess Auctioneers in Wareham have just sent me the catalogue for their latest Poole Pottery Sale on Saturday 17th November.  It's like eBay on speed.  And although the sale is too far for me to travel to, they do a great packing service.

A Wet Weekend Rummage

The plan for shifting my collection towards bigger, better and inevitably fewer pots might be working a bit too well.  In contrast to the weather outside, there seems to have been a complete drought in Poole.  Fortunately, the years of squirreling pots away under beds might finally have paid off, with a weekend of rummaging and photographing producing quite a stash of new pictures to post over the coming weeks.  

The first is a little 7 cm tall jug, with no shape number, made in the early to middle 1960's and glazed in Twin-tone colours Lime Yellow and Seagull (C103). 

Twintone Love

I've just spent a wet weekend smartening up the Twintone Gallery on my website.  

The tea pots and sugar bowl above are in the Streamline shape designed by John Adams in 1935 and later updated by Alfred Read.  They're coloured in Twintone glazes C95, Indian Red and Magnolia, my favourite combination, which was produced between 1955 and 1959.  You may also notice that the pots here have cleverly formed themselves into a heart shape.

All my birthdays at once

This is just part of a coffee set given to me by a friend, who wakes up early enough on a Sunday to find car boot treasures, and who's kind enough to give this one to me.  The whole set has cups, saucers and side plates too.  

This "Contour" tableware designed by Robert Jefferson in 1963/64 was a development on the earlier "Streamline" shapes that John Adams designed in the 1930's, and still used the "Twintone" glazes (in this case C57 - Ice green and Seagull).  However they have a much more modern and sculptural look with the elongated spout and the ergonomic handle shapes being particularly pleasing.

Alternatives to these velum Twintone glazes were latter made available in the form of shiny "Cameo" two colour glazes and several different printed patterns.

Poole Pottery Candle Holder

This eBay purchase is another departure for me, but I've been eyeing up candle holders like this for a while.  There's one for a single candle with a shell-like scroll shape, that I hoped to find first, but ended up with this double version, and I think there are other holders for 3 or more candles too.  The glaze is called "seagull" and the shape (no 977) was probably designed by John Adams and Harry Brown in the mid to late 1930's.

Another Cruet Shape

This shape was designed by Guy Sydenham and Tony Morris in 1967/68.  It's shape no 506 and quite often appears in the Sea Crest and Blue Lace glazes for which I think it was originally designed, but I haven't quite worked out yet the names of  these glaze colours.  Hopefully I'll find out before posting this and other new tableware shapes to my website that I'm planning to update next week.

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.

Poole Contour Pottery Chimney Cruet

These Twintone salt, pepper and mustard pots are cast in the shape of traditional pottery kiln chimneys.  The colour is Peach Bloom and Seagull (C97).

Shapely Twintone Contour Cruet

Back down to with with this one, which is a little more everyday than the last few posts.  The shape was designed by Robert Jefferson, as the cruet for the Contour range of tableware that that he introduced in 1959 as a replacement for Streamline.  The Twintone colours are C104 Sky Blue and Dove Grey, which were used from 1958 right up until 1981.  I found them on eBay last month and nice though the set is, it was quickly photographed for the website and then hidden away in a box under then bed.

Twintone C100

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

Poole Twintone C95 Coffee Pot

The C95 colour combination was in production from 1950 until 1956.  The shape was designed by John Adams in the mid-1930's.  Alfred Read updated this shape in the early to mid 1950's with a round button-shaped finial.  This one came form a Twintone collector at the Elsecar Antiques fair earlier this month.

Twintone Sweetcorn and Brazil

Sweetcorn and Brazil C107 was one of the later Twintone colour combos: In production from 1956-68. These oil and vinegar bottles came from eBay recently.  I'm not 100% sure I like C107, but I was driven by the urge to get at least one example of everything and the colour with this quite striking shape really looks the business.  The stoppers too are thought to be original (please tell me if not).

Twintone Cruet Set C95

One great thing about Poole Twintone is that most of it is still cheep enough to use every day.  I'm not sure I use containers of condiments myself, but the options there. The cruet set is shape number 335 and the colour pairing  Indian Red and Magnolia (C95) which is my favourite, so I try to get anything in this colour even if I'm not going to use it.  C95 was in production from 1950 until 1956.