by Linda Romberg
Shawnee Tales
Arpil 2013
Spring time has arrived in Arizona although many areas are still having snow storms. I'll brag about our mid 80 days that continue to warm us. then mid summer the rest of you can rub it in how nice your summers are when it hits 115-118 here!
Doug and I continue to get some inquiries from new collectors and new readers to the newsletter and site. One in particular brought up the issue of our problems with Larry McKinley and his doctoring of authentic pottery with gold and even decals - in so many ways he contaminated collections and took the joy out of this wonderful hobby. He passed away in 2011 but the "crap" he put into the collecting world is still here.
The note below puts it in prospective -
I was searching the web for possible current prices for my gold smiley and came across your blogs and such about this Larry McKinley selling on eBay.
I have a pretty good collection and now am very worried and all but believing I am the "fool" that bought the $1476 gold smiley on eBay a couple of years ago. I forget the price I paid but that sounds like it may have been it.
Holy$:&;)/@/&/. As I was writing this email:
I just got on my PayPal and sure enough back on 8/10/10 I paid the son of a $:)&:&/.
My signature piece of my collection is ruined. I am beyond sick to my stomach. Think this is the end of the line for any future collecting for me. I now remember thinking the bottom label looked funny for the Lemieux china.
I have his email address from back then but not sure what if any recourse I could stir up at this point. Do you have an address for him or current eBay user name? Anyone suing this guy or anything?
Thank you for any help you may be able to provide me. I feel like a total idiot.
I will not ever put this back out in the market place. You do not have to worry about that. Whether or not I decide to get out at this point is another story. My collection started when my grandmother died and I got a couple of Smiley cookie jars and range shakers. Those pieces will also never be sold. Had put a lot of time, energy and enthusiasm into this collection.
We sincerely hope this has not ruined the collection for the writer, we have had many collectors touched by problems like this, truly a shame!
( Note from Doug - in my last contact with this collector he said when he determines 100% this jar is a fake he may do a youtube video of blowing it up. Stay tuned.)
Often in their emails they are looking for help in identifying patterns. One wrote in about the wave pattern which is pictured below.
I have usually picked just one color to collect in a certain pattern but know collectors who try to fill ever color in every pattern, I am more like that in the pieces with decals :)
Years ago when I first met Mel and Jean Gibson I recall they carried on of the Supnick books with them and their goal was to find each and every piece with all the variations and colors shown in the book as well as many other variations. We had such fun at Pottery Festival on our searches. Wish we lived nearer so I could have seen their collection first hand, I sure enjoyed their visit to Arizona, I think we hit almost every antique shop in the Valley.
Earlier I had posted about Joyce Swanson passing in Calif the end of last year - I was able to pull up her obituary and am including it for those of you who remember her - she was part of the original network of friends who met via Pam Curran's newsletter back in the early 1980's. Read Obituary
She was such a special lady who shared our passion for this pottery! RIP Joyce
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