nl18

Hard to believe another year has come and gone! Doug and I commented the

other day how quickly the end of the month rolls around with a newsletter

deadline! Hopefully this year we will be able to look back and find we have

accomplished some positive improvements with Ebay regarding all the reproduction

listings! We get so many emails each month from collectors being scammed

BEFORE they discover the website. The clown repros seems to be catching more

people unaware than the Smileys and Puss n Boots these days. Some of you

have probably noticed several auction listings specifically designed to inform

buyers of the fake problems instead of being actual items for sale - Doug had

one running and Ebay ended up pulling it but several continue to run and have

stirred a lot of interest as well as directed a lot of new people to Doug's

website where they find a lot of helpful information on the problem. The

more awareness, the better!

One of the questions about authenticity we get asked is about the duck and

pig feeding dish - one is currently listed on Ebay. It has never been authenticated by any catalogs or documentation but they are pieces that are hard to deny when you have them in hand. I have had them in my collection for years now and even if they aren't Shawnee, I love go-with pieces that are vintage with decals from the same era as Shawnee. Each dish is marked USA and to date we haven't been able to link them to any other pottery company other than Shawnee. They certainly have the color and feel of Shawnee.

Years ago for one of the other newsletters, I also provided pictures of two figurines I have, an elephant and a floppy eared dog - not necessarily

Shawnee but with the decals typically found on the yellow and blue bib Smiley cookie jars. A friend in Pennsylvania found them and sent them to me, I doubt she had any idea how much I would treasure these pieces. I have only seen one

other elephant like it while shopping for antiques in Calif years ago - he was so badly crazed that it supported my instincts that while cute pieces,

probably not Shawnee as I've rarely seen any piece of Shawnee susceptible to that extensive amount of crazing. These have the gold Shafer palette marking on the bases as well as the U.S.A.

Many collectors have felt these items could be the product of Chic Pottery

but I know very little about the company other than it seems to show up in the

East and be mainly small figurines from the 30's and 40's. Would appreciate

any information any of you have about it. For those of you also interested

in collecting pieces with decals of the same era, Abingdon has assorted small

to mid sized vases with decals we find on the gold Bo Peeps and Granny

Ann's. The Abingdon vase is on the far right - while not decals found on Shawnee

the two unmarked pieces on the left are - one may be Abingdon or both could

be products of Chic pottery.

Interestingly, the snail flower frog is a piece that is featured in Pam

Curran's book, chapter 34 on page 239 that is remarkably similar to some of these

piece that is sometimes found with gold and decals. Considering this, it is

very likely that some of the other pieces above COULD actually be Shawnee.

As years go buy, it becomes harder to actually authenticate some of these

pieces as documentation is lost and former employees are no longer around to

confirm pieces anymore. Regardless, the enjoyment of collecting is to buy what

you LOVE and enjoy your collection!!!!