Mar 2017
by Lin Romberg
Shawnee Tales
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Have had some inquiries about several pieces this past month. First being the small Smiley shakers with the light green bibs as to whether they are genuine vintage Shawnee. Pam Curran shows them in her book on page 117 upper right corner. I have never seen this pair in person but some appear to be a lacquer finish rather than cold paint - reminds me of the green and orange we find hand decorating some of the flowered jars. I am guessing they are earlier pieces as are some of the yellow bibs and red cold painted shakers. Nearly 35 years ago when the only source to find Shawnee was the Antique Trader I bought a pair from a seller - when I received them along with some other pieces I had purchased from her - I returned them, doubting their legitimacy - as a novice collector I had only seen the under glaze shakers. Definitely a learning curve in collecting but to this day, I am not a fan of the cold painted pieces and have none in my collection.
Another was about the red lacquer found on many of the pieces. I bought my first piece with the red lacquer trim on the elephant creamer and thought someone had amateurishly doctored the piece. Many of us who connected through Pam Currans newsletter shared stories of attempting to remove the red lacquer in our early days, from soaking in turpentine, paint remover, scraping with knives - talk about ignorance amongst all of us - it was really fun learning about the experiences we all shared and having other share our enthusiasm for this pottery. Thanks Pam for bringing all of us together - I am sure Ma Bell thanks you too as my phone bills were several hundred dollars a month back then!
Another bit of confusion is about mismatched jars and shakers. Someone has been telling collectors certain jars were never designed to be as they are found today claiming they are what we call married jars. While Shawnee was pretty standard in their pairings there have been many combinations less common but then we learn the piece came to the original owner as such. Examples are the yellow bib on a shamrock bottom, the mum with a green bib instead of the red, a green bib over the multi decaled bottom we normally find with yellow or blue bibs, another uncommon pairing is a blue bib on a shamrock bottom - this in particular seemed unusual to me but Pam Curran shows one in her book with confirmation it was originally purchased this way. I have a friend in Pennsylvania who has found two bank jars at estate sales - this was over twenty years ago from original owners - both were Winnie bank heads on the Smiley bottom - how peculiar but both families had them for years, one received it as wedding gift forty years earlier . Chances are at point of purchase they could have been mispaired at the retail outlet as could any of these less common versions. None of us can say for sure what transpired 46-70 years ago but the point is to buy what you enjoy and not listen to someone telling you it isn't an authentic jar, we all have our favorites and so called "experts" are not the last word when try to interfere with sales or rain on someone's parade by dissing their purchase. As many years as I have collected I am still learning as we all will as we continue this collection. As many of the longtime readers might recall, my family jar is the plain Smiley tulip - red bib over tulip BUT it is a married jar because it is the two halves of my Mom and Grandma who each broke the opposite half and ended up putting this jar together, they had won the jars at Hawkeye Downs in the early fifties. Only those who survived The Depression would keep half a jar - the lid I could understand but the bottom?????
One of our readers sent in some beautiful pictures using Shawnee as decoration for her daughters bridal shower. Beautiful displays!
Shawnee Pottery The Full Encyclopedia
by Pam Curran, page 117.
Had a reader send in pictures of his most recent find - beautiful jar and hard to find. As I have noted before there are few blue bib Smileys with hair on them - this one passed the test as original. Most are found on the yellow bibs but this guy is gorgeous and a steal!!!!!!!
Next month I am going to delve back into early newsletters and cover the lamps in the Shawnee line - have had several inquiries about identification in recent months.
Doug's Corner
The rest of the Potter's Wheel bookends -
These shakers are red lacquer AND both have mismatched decals - the red lacquers are hard to find on range shakers and a perfect example of shakers being paired by bib color with different decals - I have always thought some people chose them to differentiate salt from pepper. I have other shaker sets I have purchased where the bibs match but not the decals and others with matching decals but different color bibs - years after closing this has to be the way they were originally purchased.
< American Bisque
