This page last updated: Thursday September 20, 2007 01:29 AM   

September 20, 2007  I'll be adding to this page as I go along now.                                                                                                                                                                    

                                                                                                                        January 22, 2006

Me: I knew this guy once who had "snew" in his blood.

You: Eeeyewww.... What's "snew"?

Me: Oh, nothing.  What's new with you?....

In trying to recapture a piece of my childhood, I was trying to add to a set of dishes that my grandmother owned.  If nothing else, I wanted to find out the pattern name.  I went searching for the dishes.  I went to "Google Images".  I typed in Shenango pink and gray.  Up came pictures of my Granny's dishes.  I learned that they are Madoc pattern by Shenango.  (Rim Rol Wel Roc)

Later on I found this listing on eBay.  It was for what looked like a mustard pot and a gravy boat.  The suspected mustard pot had a gray body and a pink lid just like Granny's dishes.  The gravy boat was gray, but it looked to be a different color to the pot.  Of course you can't be for sure until you see it in the flesh.  The seller had a photo of the bottoms of the dishes.  The gravy boat didn't have exactly the same mark on the bottom. The bid on it at that time was not quite $5.00. I thought that was a good price.  Ha! Next thing you know, there are three bidders and not one.  It was up to about $10.50.  I waited until the auction was almost over.  I tried to bid $19.00.  It didn't work.  I put in another bid.  Someone out bid me.  This all happened in the last few seconds of the bidding.  My final bid was $21.00.  The winning bid was $23.50.  I was a little sad.  But then I was happy that I had finally learned the pattern name of the dishes. 

There's these other dishes we have.  I found this custard cup a long time ago.  It had a blue band on it and a blue anchor.  The rest was white.  Everyone likes blue and white. That was in Ft. Worth.  In Virginia, I talked Douglas into buying more pieces as we found them.  I haven't seen any since---except online that is.  The other pieces I have are I believe, a saucer, some sandwich plates and a bowl. In the early 1990's I contacted Replacements Ltd..  They said that to identify the pattern of these dishes, I would have to get a good photograph of the underside (pottery mark) and the design on the dish.  OR I could send them a good photocopy. Well the photocopy place we used, wouldn't allow anything other than paper on their photocopier "bed" as they didn't want it scratched.  I couldn't get any more than a fuzzy photograph of the plates.  How to find the pattern name?  It's a good thing Douglas likes to watch old war movies.  One day he was watching John Wayne in a submarine movie.  They show John in the "mess" being tough as he is talking to someone. John is drinking "coffee" out of dishes that look exactly like the ones I had upstairs.  Wow!  Eventually I found out that I had dishes off the U.S. Naval ships. (Probably around W.W. II era, but not positive.)   When I know that, then I could look on Replacements Ltd. and I signed up to a newsletter to get a price list of what they had. (Of course that expired when I changed E-mails and didn't tell them because I couldn't remember my passwords etc.  I do keep track of that stuff now.)

January 23, 2006

Ok. I checked out Replacements again.  I went and looked at every numbered entry for Shenango.  Some of the Shenango pattern names on Replacements, are letter number combinations. I found out that Granny's dishes are on Replacements.  The pattern name according to Replacements is, "SHO55".  I signed up for their price list on Granny's dishes.  There is a Wedgwood set that was Douglas' grandmother's.  We had two dinner plates and a cup.  I went and threw one of the plates into the sink (in anger) once.  I am not happy that I did that. I found some more of it (cereal bowls and vegetable? bowls) at a thrift store.  I would like to have more of that.  So I signed up to the list for that one too.  And then the one for the Navy dishes again.  Below is what I signed up for.  Not that I will buy much.  I was finding coffee pots, tea pots and other things in the Wedgwood.  I didn't know there was so much to it.  The tea pots look very nice.  Of course from Replacements they are expensive.  I hope to bid on some soup dishes that go with Granny's dishes.  They are on eBay right now.  I guess I will have to amend this after I bid on them.  We have these "green" dishes that we found in the house. They aren't the most beautiful ones in the world.  But they work.  I have nearly broken all the soup dishes that we found in the house.  They are good for putting pizza on and other foods.  They are flat like a plate yet they have sides so the food doesn't slide off.  It would be nice to have replacements to the ones that we have broken.  It is easy to hit dishes against the faucet in the kitchen sink. (Can you tell that I am clumsy?)

Wow! In my Google searching just now for more Rim Rol Wel Roc (Shenango) dishes---- I found this pattern, " Boutonniere".  My Granny used to have this one too.  It was her "good dishes" at one time. I don't have any idea what happened to all of them.  She had all sorts of them in a China cabinet once.  She had a china cabinet built into the house.  It had a bookshelf/curio shelf on one side and the china cupboard on the other.  It was a large thing that divided one two rooms.  In about 1974, they remodeled the house and took that out. 

January 24, 2006

When we Douglas and I were both in Texas last, (summer of 2005) we went to some "antique" shops. We bought a couple of "commemorative" plates.  One plate was the Littlefield, Texas 75th anniversary plate from 1988.  We got that one in Littlefield.  The other one we got in Olney, Texas.  It was from 19532 or 1953.  It is of the First United Church of Olney.  It shows it a little different than it actually was built.  It commemorates the building of the Church. 

I was happy to find both plates.  I put them on in plate holders and set them on a table.  It never dawned on me that they would be "unstable" up there.  I have another commemorative plate from the 1940's.  Alaska wasn't a state yet.  It is a State of Texas plate.  It is very "Western Kitsch".  It is worth much more than we paid for it I think.  I had the three plates sitting on this nice round table in a bedroom. 

Our big kitty (Nicoal, "Coal", "Fluffy") was going through all sorts.  Her thyroid wasn't working right and she ate and ate but yet she was very thin.  We thought she had stopped eating for some reason.  She was very cranky and she was more "finicky" than normal.  Douglas had been at work a while.  I was still catching the last of my sleep.  As I laid in bed, the cat came in and meowed wanting something.  This was sort of a rare thing. She wouldn't stop meowing.  I know that if you ignore her, eventually she will "go away".  It wasn't working this time.  Sometimes she wants a drink of water out of the bathtub.  Other times, she wants someone to sit with her as she eats.  Both cats are very spoiled.  We don't like to sit with them as they eat though.  Sometimes you have to "show them to the food bowl" though.  I kept trying to ignore the cat.  The more I ignored her, the worse she got. She resorted to her old trick of doing something naughty to get my attention.  She normally stays off furniture and other places she shouldn't go. But when she is desperate...  Coal started climbing on a dresser, around the television next to the dresser, and then finally onto the round table.  The next thing you know I heard this crash.  There went my plates. Coal had probably tried to rub against one of them with her body. I got up and looked, the Littlefield commemorative was broken.  I was very angry.  I reserved my anger for myself.  If I hadn't ignored her!... On the floor sort of behind the round table is a Victorian? heavy metal (iron?) mirrored wall sconce. (Thing you stick candles in and hang on the wall for lighting.  I will have to stick a photo of it on this site some day.) When the plate fell it must have hit this metal object. 

You wouldn't believe how grief stricken I was.  I knew my 90 year old Grandfather (in Littlefield) was very sick.  At some point it got to where he couldn't take phone calls from me.  He didn't have the "patience" I guess to be on the phone long.  He had his mind pretty much.  But with the pain and the medications, it seemed like it was hard for him to concentrate.  It just really hit me hard that I allowed this plate to be broken like that. Over the Christmas holidays I glued this plate back together the best I could.  It will never be the same.  It works until I find another one. 

I should have learned my lesson.  One day, Douglas was getting the little cat (Dubhghall, "Dougall", "Fluffer") out from under the round table.  We were taking both cats to the vets for shots.  (It was at this visit that we discovered that Coal had her thyroid problem. As he was reaching under the table, he bumped it and the remaining plates fell.  I really barked at him for not paying attention to the plates on the table. It happened very fast.

We were in a hurry to get out of the house.  From then on, he misremembered the incident and thought he had broken my Littlefield plate.  I had to remind him that it was Coal who had done the damage. Douglas didn't break any of the plates though.  None of them hit the wall sconce.

I should have remembered these things and learned that those plates didn't belong up there like that.  A few months later, I went and was getting under the table myself.  I was plugging in a VCR (video recorder) so I could record some stuff from one tape to another. (for my OWN use)  I was getting in under the round table in order to plug in the second VCR.  When I was under there, I bumped the table.  There was this loud crash. The Olney plate had crashed onto the sconce.  I was very upset--with myself mainly.  I was crying dry tears.  Douglas heard something--probably the crash and then my "crying"-- and came running. He had just gone to bed and was probably "just" asleep.  He wondered if I hadn't hurt myself some how. I apologized to him "royally" (much).  I was so sorry that I had barked at him recently, for the thing that I go and do.  I had forgotten that these plates were up on the table in such a way that they fall over with the slightest wiggle of the table.  He said it was ok as he tried to comfort me.  So now the Olney plate gets relegated to the "mosaic" bag in the basement.  I am saving broken dishes now for mosaics. 

It is very aggravating that these things happen.  I have taken the 1940's plate out of the plate holder and it is firmly laying down on the table.  It should be ok.  I don't know how many times it has fallen when I had it on the plate hanger elsewhere in the room.  And it fell when the others fell.  It just didn't fall to the floor and get broken.  I know I won't be able to replace the Texas plate, so I am taking better care of it. 

I think this is good for now.  I have a few more things to do, then I have to act like a cow patty and hit the trail. This is the end of the dish saga for now.  If there's more dish stuff I will write about it on another page. 

January 25, 2006

Naw, I will just write what happened here.  The bid on the soup dishes was $9.99 or whatever it was. I put a bid of $25.00 near the end of the auction.  I won it paying only $10.49 for them.  Of course since they are very heavy and there are six of them, they want $10.55 for shipping.  Ok now I got something we didn't have before.  Even my Granny didn't have soup plates.  They are the almost flat bowls used for soup.  I don't know why they put soup in these type of dishes.  Because the soup is spread out, it gets cold faster.  My guess is that when you are eating with The Queen or at some fancy table, AND you are eating several courses, they want the soup to cool off quick, because you are wanting to finish it fast.  They want you done with the soup so that you can get to the next course fast enough.

This is definitely it for this page.  If I write more about dishes, it will be on another page.  Thanks!

September 20, 2007

Ok, I am putting more on here.   Someday I will have to tell the whole teapot story.  Right now I am just putting some links on here.  I really like these very utilitarian teapots, made by "Alcock, Lindley and Bloore Ltd ".  They are called "brown Betty" teapots.  As far as I know, that's all they made.  I was looking them up on the Internet and I found the following links.  I had found some of them before but I am just now adding them on here.

Handle and Spout "English Redware Teapots" http://handleandspout.blogspot.com/2006/03/english-redware-teapots.html 

Alcock, Lindley and Bloore Ltd  at "The Potteries.org"...  http://www.thepotteries.org/allpotters/16.htm

Another web site with information about various "Alcock" potteries. (Including Alcock, Lindley and Bloore Ltd.... http://www.abcir.org/alcocks.shtml

Speaking of tea...
http://www.nicecupofteaandasitdown.com/ This one's called, "Nice Cup Of Tea And A Sit Down.com".  They have a "Biscuit (cookie) of the Week".  Cool!! 

This is all for now.  Will have to write more later.