Potting Up Some Beauty

 

QUESTION: I love plants and for the last few years I’ve been buying a variety of colorful vintage ceramic flower pots at local flea markets and garage sales. Few of them have any makers’ marks. I’d like to have some idea who made some of the pots I have. Can you help me?

ANSWER: Unfortunately, many of the potteries that produced these pots didn’t mark them. But I should be able to give you some clues to their makers through descriptions of their patterns. Some things never go out of style. And so it is with vintage ceramic flower pots. 

Gardening furniture and accessories have become one of the hottest vintage collectibles. For the last several decades, decorating magazines have shown them in rooms adorned with vintage garden ware. Produced in many styles and colors, there’s a flowerpot available to harmonize with almost any decor.

Many American potteries, such as McCoy, Shawnee, Roseville, and Camark produced flowerpots from the 1930s to the 1950s. And people are still using many of them today to display their houseplants. Some even collect them.

The Nelson McCoy Pottery Company, which operated in Roseville, Ohio, from 1920 to 1967, made over 10 different patterns of flowerpots with attached saucers. Some of the most common patterns, available in three sizes and glazes including aqua, green, dark green, white, yellow, rust, plum and pink, were Basketweave, Beaded Tower Patch, Greek Key, and Stonewall. These are quite common and can still be found at garage sales, although prices have risen to $5 to $45 in the past few years. 

Roseville Pottery operated several potteries in Roseville and Zanesville, Ohio, from 1892 to 1954. Early on, they made utilitarian ware, but by 1902, the company had begun to produce art pottery, such as Rozane, Fuji, and Della Robbia. Talented designers such as Frederick H. Rhead and Frank Ferrell contributed to the success of these   lines. Roseville later produced molded flowerpots in a variety of glazes and patterns, including Apple Blossom, Bittersweet, Bleeding Heart, Bushberry, Clematis, Columbine, Corinthian, Cosmos, Donatello, Ferella, Foxglove, Freesia, Iris, Ivory II, Ixia, Jonquil, La Rose, Magnolia, Moss, Pine Cone, Poppy, Primrose, Rosecraft, Snowberry, Water Lily, White Rose and Zephyr Lily. These had separate, not attached, saucers and were usually available in several glaze colors. Most were 5 inches tall, although the Donatello and Rosecraft patterns came in three sizes—4, 5 and 6 inches. Roseville flowerpots cost more than others and are usually hard to find than those of other manufacturers. Most sell for $75 to $200.

Shawnee Pottery Company of Zanesville, Ohio, produced not only kitchenware but inexpensive flower pots from 1937to 196 for Samuel Henry Kress,  F.W. Woolworth, and Sears Roebuck. Patterns included burlap surface, diamond quilted, square, three-footed with embossed flower, scalloped rim, and five-petal flower around rim. Their flowerpots sell for under $15.  

The Vernon Kilns Pottery of Los Angeles, operating between 1931 and 1958, produced flower pots with separate saucers in several of their handpainted dinnerware patterns, such as Brown-Eyed Susan, Homespun, Organdie, and Gingham in three sizes—3, 4 and 5 inches. Though highly sought after by collectors, all are hard to find, especially the saucers, and prices range from $40 to $60.

Founded in 1926, Camden Art Tile and Pottery Company was the third and last producer of art pottery in Arkansas. By the end of its first year, its name had changed to Camark to include both the city of Camden and the state of Arkansas. The firm produced flowerpots that were similar to, if not exact copies of, those of other manufacturers. The bottom line for Camark was to keep abreast of market trends and either meet them or anticipate new ones as was the case with flowerpots. By the mid-1930s, Camark had introduced a line of flowerpots with attached saucers. Camark realized the potential for flowerpot sales and predicted that growing plants will be sold in very large quantities and flower pots will become a necessity—a prediction which definitely came true. To cut costs, Camark changed the types of clays it used for its flowerpots. Previously, the company relied on Arkansas clays but began to use clays from outside the state.

With flowerpots, it’s really not whether they’re worth anything as collectibles— although some are—but whether they appeal to you.

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The Real McCoy

QUESTION: I love to collect cookie jars. I don’t have too many unusual ones in my collection, so you can imagine my joy when I came across this Mission Apollo cookie jar, made by the McCoy Pottery Company.  It’s one of the most unique ones I’ve seen. What can you tell me about this cookie jar and about the company that made it?

ANSWER: Cookie jars are a very popular collectible and have been since the 1960s when figural cookie jars reached their peak. You found one of the more unusual ones because not only is it one of McCoy’s best, it also commemorates the Apollo mission to the Moon in 1969. But the McCoy company in all its forms has been around for a very long time.

In 1848 William Nelson McCoy started a modest pottery business in Putnam, Ohio, producing simple, sturdy, utilitarian stoneware items for both local consumers and folks located further downriver from the plant. This began a four-generations family potting venture that would continue for over 40 years. As decades passed, the factory site shifted from Putnam to Roseville, Ohio, and the product lines evolved from utilitarian stoneware to useful earthenware table and artware. At its height in the 1950s, the Nelson McCoy Pottery Company employed 500 people whose combined efforts produced 500,000 pieces every month. The design department created up 50 new designs every year. Then potters produced them in three or more glaze colors.

Early on, the company produced mostly stoneware,  decorated with a variety of glazes. Glaze decoration on stoneware ranged from solid colors to blended and matt glazes. Common matt glazes included a brown and green combination, a dark green, and a white glaze color.

In 1886, J.W. McCoy, the son of W.N. McCoy, opened the McCoy Pottery Company, which over the next 12 years would merge with another company and sold to yet another.

J. W. McCoy, assisted his son, William Nelson McCoy, to form the Nelson McCoy Sanitary Stoneware Company on a site north of Roseville, Ohio, on April 25, 1910. The company employed a combination of local and English immigrant potters. Among the company's early wares were butter crocks, churns, jars, jugs, meat tubs, mixing bowls and storage containers. Other practical early products included foot warmers  and poultry fountains. Workers labeled early churns, jars and jugs on the side with the company's stenciled “M,” double shield and clover mark. By the 1920s, the company began putting its mark on the bottom of its pieces.


In 1926, the firm expanded its range of wares, producing earthenware specialties and artware for the first time. Among the new wares, glinting with the bright glazes popular during the period, were cuspidors, umbrella stands and jardinieres with pedestals, for which McCoy became widely known.

The 1930's brought a lot of changes at the company, including a change in name to "The Nelson McCoy Pottery Company." They also shed their old image of the producer of crocks and jugs and ushered in the new techniques, designs and products. In 1934, Nelson McCoy hired an English designer named Sidney Cope, whose designs were very distinctive.


By the end of the 1930s, the demand for jardinieres and large vases was decreasing. The Nelson McCoy Pottery Company turned its attention to the production of artwares, along with novelties like figural cookie jars, an idea that came from Duncan Curtiss, from the firm’s New York sales department. Curtisss felt that cookie jars shaped in the forms of fruit, flowers and characterizations would be well received by the public. And he was right.

By 1967, McCoy Pottery had begun to have financial problems because it couldn’t compete on the international import market. The Mount Clemens Pottery Company bought the company, and in 1974 , they sold it to the Lancaster Colony Corporation. In 1990 the McCoy Pottery ceased operation after a number of declining years of sales and profit. Today the company is best remembered for it's many collectible cookie jar.


Though McCoy marked most of their cookie jars with an incised “McCoy” on the bottom, there  are some exceptions. Over the years they used a variety of styles for their logo and a jar can often be dated by knowing which styles where used during each era. But be careful, as the McCoy mark is one of the most copied marks out there. Just because a jar or seller says it’s a "real McCoy" doesn't mean it is. Caution is always advised when it comes to the higher priced cookie jars.

Because of the prolific production of the company, collectors of McCoy pottery will be able to find pieces in a variety of designs and colors for a long time. This Mission Apollo or “Astronauts” cookie jar, produced in 1970, is one of the harder ones to find.

For more information on collecting cookie jars, read “Cookie Jars—Good as Gold” in The Antiques Almanac.