I’m trying to remember what, exactly, triggered my need to collect McCoy pottery. I’m usually pretty good at remembering that kind of thing…something tells me it might have been a photo or two in a magazine. I’d seen it before, of course, in antique shops and tag sales. Funny, isn’t it? You can see something fairly frequently and virtually ignore it and then suddenly you see it with fresh eyes and pow! You’re gone.
Initially, I was drawn to the colors: aqua, pink, yellow, sea-foam green, cream. Wonderful sherbety colors. Then I fell for the birds, which are often found on McCoy pieces, like this Arcature vase.
And on this whimsical cuckoo clock wall pocket.
I’ve lost count of just how many pieces I own – well over 60, I would think.
Here’s the wonderful thing about collecting McCoy pottery: it’s still fairly inexpensive. Occasionally I’ll run across a piece that is rare and, therefore, pricier. Or, I’ll run across some pieces that are ridiculously marked up in price, as I wrote about in this post. But, for the most part, there are lots of pieces out there. McCoy was very moderately priced in its heyday and made its way into countless American households.











s promised, here are a few more egg cups. These are on a little shelf in the den, which for some reason, looks crooked in this photo. Top left, Humpty Dumpty, made in England; one of my favorites, the Painter Bunny egg cup, made in Japan. Second shelf, Humpty Dumpty again – this one is quite large; the head comes off and is a salt shaker and the egg nestles in the body. Next to that, a pig ready to dine on an egg – from Tiffany’s. Bottom shelf: Part of a series of Disney egg cups made in 1939 – Doc. (I want more of these, but they are expensive!) Next to that, a little clown with the sweetest face, holding an egg.
y alarm (on the iPhone) went off at 5:15 AM. As I groped for the phone I saw a text message on the screen from the woman I was to work with this morning in NYC. She had sent it at 2 in the morning. She was sick with a sore throat and no voice, therefore, no session today. So I got to go back to sleep, but I lost money. Such is the life of the freelancer.
