Shawnee Tales
Mar 2012
by Linda Romberg
Go to - Moment
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We have had a lot of responses this month, new collectors, alerts to errors in listing and questions from old and new collectors.
There was a beautiful gold sailor listed - spectacular gold, BUT although an authentic Shawnee sailor - it was a cold painted mold that had been doctored - looking carefully at the decals it was not authentic. I emailed the seller to let them know which can be a touchy situation but he pulled out his books to compare and realized it was not correct. He had purchased it as genuine so was really disappointed (it had a flurry of bids in the first day, I think 17). He emailed me he was pulling the auction and thanked me for contacting him. How refreshing to have an honest seller. This is such an example though of how many of us could have doctored pieces in our collections by not being aware of decals or a piece that has no decals, the gold could have been applied. Scary as years back we had a guy selling all over the West and many long time serious collectors ended up with pieces from him and some of those pieces are likely spread across the entire U.S. Over the years there have been several dealers who practiced this kind of deceit. None of us are immune to being fooled, we just need to be extra careful in knowing our pottery. I personally would prefer a genuine piece with minor damage priced right than a repaired piece - to me restoration is not an option with exception to an extremely rare piece - the personal choice of each collector yet often the repair is not disclosed years down the road.
doctored
doctored
vintage
Note - the bottom pant decal on the left should be the same decal as the upper right and likewise on the right bottom decal - it matches the upper left and the decals are the same ones we find on the blue and yellow bib Smiley jars. PAY ATTENTION TO DETAILS. Bob Tarlton who sold under the guise of the Lost Dutchman in the west and from Ohio actually managed to take the names of several collectors at Long Beach, Ca one month and turned out three gold sailors in the next month. He did shows from Nevada, California, Washington State, Arizona, Texas and only God knows where back East - this was before the Internet and believe me, our land lines were buzzing on his escapades.
I nearly bought a pair of Dutch range shakers with unusual decals from him but a portion of the decal I could scrape off with my fingernail - a few weeks later friends called from Calif telling me about a pair of shakers - I bought them only to receive the same set I had scraped off a portion of
the decal - they had purchased them from Bob Tarlton....another local collector bought a Lucky elephant with blueberries painted on it's backside - they picked up the jar to sell to the Supnicks only to find out it was doctored and of no value - the stories go on and on.
A 'new" collector who has only been collecting for a year sent some pictures of his acquisitions - he is off to a great start to building quite a collection.
Another collector sent in a picture of an elephant creamer fake which is often presented as Shawnee, even with McCoy on the bottom.
also marked McCoy
When I first began collecting, I picked up a yellow one thinking it might be Shawnee -since then I learned there is a company in the south who manufactured these creamers, just slightly smaller than the Shawnee mold but very similar otherwise. It is packed away but if I can locate it I will include a picture in the future – even the coloring is similar to the yellow Puss N Boots creamer.
Until next month, Lin Linromb@aol.com
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Just received a very special Bo Peep pitcher that I didn’t know existed – it has the decals we find on the elephant creamer as well as on the gold peach bib Smiley range shakers – thanks to three very special friends it made it’s way to Arizona. Thanks!
