flowers — Page 205

Collecting Roseville Pottery: References, Prices & Marks

July 24, 2016 at 10:13 am by Claudia

7-24 browneyedsusans

The heat continues here in the Northeast (and not only here). I go outside to water the plants about three times a day, then it’s back to the A/C. I end up feeling restless.

I want to share some Roseville Pottery resources and information that will be helpful if you’re considering buying a piece or two. There are sources online that will explain marks and the history of Roseville Pottery. A simple Google search will bring them up.

Reference Books

You know me. I like to research and learn as much as I can about the things I love to collect. So I have books about egg cups, McCoy Pottery, Bakelite and Roseville Pottery. Here are three of the books I consult:

7-24 rosevillebooks

The Collectors Encyclopedia of Roseville Pottery
Warman’s Roseville Pottery
Warman’s Companion: Roseville Pottery (this is essentially the same as the larger book, but it’s portable.)

I’ve had these for several years and I don’t know if they’ve been updated recently. (Check Amazon.) If they haven’t, the price range you see will not be accurate. And frankly, nothing that wasn’t written in 2016 will be accurate. What these do have are lots of color photos of the various patterns and helpful information as to when they were manufactured and what marks were used.

7-24 rosevilleprices

I found this handy book last year – you can get it on Amazon and eBay. This is updated every year, so it’s a valuable reference for current prices. It’s simply what it says; a list, by pattern and number, of the price range for each piece of Roseville. This now lives right by my chair in the den. I consult it all the time. Priced at $9.95. Totally worth it.

This booklet, in combination with my picture books, is all I need.

Marks

There’s not a lot of consistency as to marks. Some of the earlier pieces had foil stickers and no incised marks. Eventually they began to be marked “Roseville” with the pattern number below. In 1940, many of the pieces began to be marked: Roseville, U.S.A., with the corresponding number for that piece. These marks tend to be raised. Here are some examples:

7-24 rosevillemark1

Roseville, U.S.A. 63-8″ – this mark is on the bottom of my pink peony vase.

7-24 rosevillemark2

The bottom of one of the Clematis pieces. Note the long tail on the R, the slanted, Art Deco-style letters, and the flourish on the ‘e.’

7-24 rosevillemark3

I know this one is hard to see, but it’s an example of an earlier pattern that has “Roseville” and the number, but no U.S.A. This is on the bottom of my Cosmos vase. That’s because this was produced after 1935 but before 1940. However, the long tail on the R and the tail on the ‘e’ remain the same as what you saw on the other pieces. This one is incised, not raised.

Reproductions/Fakes

As to fakes or reproductions: there is quite a bit of information online about determining whether a piece is a reproduction. After collecting for a number of years, I can usually tell just by eyeing a piece. I do have an example of a reproduction to share with you. When Sonja sent me a few pieces of Roseville several years ago, she included one that was questionable. She suspected it was a reproduction. Here it is:

7-24 rosevillefake

This is a reproduction of the Fuschia pattern. There are a couple of things that I see immediately: the glaze on the front and the back has a bit too much variation in color. The other side of this is a darker shade of brown. When I hold it, it doesn’t have the weight and heft of a Roseville piece. It’s much lighter. Roseville was made from the rich clay found in Ohio.

This is, by the way, a much better reproduction than many I’ve seen. Let’s look at the mark.

7-24 rosevillefakemark

There have always been fakes or reproductions of certain pottery lines. They are most often made in other countries and imported to the United States. At some point, U.S. Customs got fed up and ruled that U.S.A. could no longer be part of the mark on these pieces. There are fakes that do use U.S.A., but not of recent vintage.

This one uses a number that is highly questionable. Why? The ‘C’ isn’t part of a real Roseville mark. Maybe it stands for ‘copy’ or ‘China’? There is a mark for the corresponding Fuchsia piece in my reference book: 892-6″. But this mark flips the ‘9.’ As for the lettering, it’s an entirely different style than that used by Roseville. Reminiscent of the style, but quite different.

It’s a nice little vase, but it’s not Roseville.

You have to be careful when searching on eBay or Etsy. Most reputable dealers will list pieces as reproductions, but not everyone does. Some sellers are simply dishonest. Some honestly don’t know that it’s a reproduction. Some sellers will say they think it’s a reproduction, but aren’t sure. As you look and study, you’ll begin to develop an eye for that sort of thing.

I searched for some Roseville on Etsy yesterday and it seems to be more realistically priced at the moment than the Roseville on eBay. If you buy on Etsy, you pay the price listed. If you use eBay, depending on the listing, you get the thrill of bidding. It’s up to you!

I hope this helps, my friends. I’ll be sure to keep you updated.

We’ll close with some real flowers:

7-24 garden

Happy Sunday.

ClaudiaSignature140X93

Quirky

July 21, 2016 at 9:35 am by Claudia

Riffing a bit on this Thursday morning:

7-21 phlox

The scent of phlox is everywhere these days as more and more blooms appear. This is David Phlox, which grows very tall and is quite striking in the garden.

7-21 phloxinthegarden

I see photos on blogs and on Instagram of flowers that have been plucked from a garden and are now inside the house in pretty vases. I love these photos, but I am not one who picks flowers from my gardens. I only do it when there is danger of frost or when, in the case of peonies and rain, the flowers are soon going to be on the ground. Or, as I had to do this summer, when Japanese Beetles are about to destroy them.

Otherwise…no.

Why? I’ve been thinking about that. I like seeing the flowers in the garden beds, blooming where they’ve been planted. I like the landscape of plants that I see each day. I put them there for a reason and that’s where I want them to be. I fully realize I am most likely a weird exception in this particular area. The fact is, when the gardens are in full bloom, I don’t need flowers in the house. I can see flowers everywhere when I look out the windows and, better yet, I can go outside and smell them and observe them and marvel at all the splashes of color. They are out there, not just for me, but more importantly, for the butterflies and the bees and the bugs that need them to survive.

Cutting the flowers also shortens their life and I want them around as long as possible.

If I’m desperate for flowers in the house, I can always buy an inexpensive bouquet from Trader Joe’s. But I’m really only desperate for flowers inside when the seasons change; when autumn heads into winter and winter takes over for several months. Or when I’m on the road and a bouquet of flowers makes a strange place more like home.

At times, I’ve toyed with the idea of a cutting garden, but I know what would happen. I’d set up the cutting garden and then I wouldn’t want to cut the flowers. They’d stay where they were planted. So the ‘cutting garden’ would become another garden bed.

7-21 hydrangea

I tend to be this way about things I really like. I want them to remain in their ‘pure’ state. (I determine whatever the heck my concept of ‘pure’ is, of course; it’s all in my head.) It’s a longstanding joke between Don and me. Don: “How about if I add this and this to French Toast?” Me: “Not for me. I like it with butter and syrup.” Don: “What about powdered sugar?” Me: “No.”

Don: “How about sour cream on that baked potato?” Me: “No. I like it with butter and salt and pepper. Nothing extra. I don’t want to mess with it.”

We just went through this yesterday, although in this case, Don agreed with me. We toyed with the idea of making pancakes with the black raspberries and then we realized we like them the way they are. We didn’t want to bake them, or warm them up, or add them to batter. On our cereal? Yes. Maybe a few of them added to some plain yogurt? Sure. But otherwise, we’d rather eat them out of our hands and get that pure burst of taste from the berry without anything else added to the mixture.

All female casts in productions of Shakespeare? Not my thing. All male? Not really, but there’s a precedent for that since the actors in Shakespeare’s company were all male. But that was because women couldn’t do that sort of thing back then. Now, they can. Nowadays, it tends to be a directorial gimmick to change things up. I don’t think Shakespeare needs any gimmicks. Likewise, radical changes in the text – no and no and no. Tell the story that Mr. Shakespeare wrote. Don’t mess with it.

7-21 pinkishhydrangea

Oh, I know I’m quirky. And opinionated. I sort of like things that way.

But I’m tolerant as well; if Don wants to add things to his baked potato, have at it, I say. If he wants to add things to his French Toast, go for it – just as long as he doesn’t mess with mine.

He is not allowed to pick flowers from the gardens, however. That’s where I draw the line.

On to other things: I ran some errands yesterday (gathering supplies for the dollhouse build) and I had to stop at Target, where I found myself adding this $23 lamp to my cart.

7-21 newdesklamp

I needed a lamp for this section of my desk, which is the section where I work on miniatures. It’s in a lovely shade of seafoam green and the brass matches the brass trim on my other desk lamp.

I like it a lot.

How can it be July 21st already? Summer is passing much too quickly, don’t you think? I’m trying to savor it while I can.

Happy Thursday.

ClaudiaSignature140X93

Gardening, Berry Picking, Bunny Watching

July 20, 2016 at 9:58 am by Claudia

7-20 frontlawnmowed

I love looking at the lawn just after it’s been mowed. In this case, by me, on Monday. I mowed this side of the lawn (and it’s much bigger than this photo indicates.) Don stepped in and did the other side. Now we have to tackle the corrals and the back forty. It takes a minimum of two days to mow all of our grass, sometimes longer. And we do it with a gas-powered push mower, not a riding mower. Even if we could afford a riding mower, I don’t think we’d invest in one at this point. The exercise is really good for us.

Checking out the gardens:

7-20 browneyedsusan

The first Black-Eyed Susan (or Brown-Eyed Susan, it seems to be called both) opened up the other day. There are many more to follow. I suppose I could simply call it Rudbeckia, and solve this problem.

7-20 coneflowerandbee

If you look at the upper left hand corner of the coneflower, you’ll see a little bee, nicely blending in with the flower.

7-20 daylilyandbug

I can’t stand it, this is so beautiful.

7-20 hostablooms

All of the hostas have blooms now.

7-20 liatris

The liatris will soon be blooming. There are more spikes than ever this year, which makes me happy.

7-20 morningglory

The morning glories are starting their climb up the chicken wire fence (this is in the Memorial Garden.)

7-20 moonflower

Also in the Memorial Garden – moonflowers climbing up the trellis.

Since yesterday gave us temps in the mid-eighties rather than the mid-nineties, I spent most of the day outside. I cut back the catmint to encourage a second bloom, I weeded, I tried to tame the crown vetch, which likes to take over, I cut back the wild roses near the maple tree – I did a lot of ‘garden maintenance.’ It looks a lot better out there now.

And we meandered up to the back forty,

7-20 donwithblackrasberries

where we picked another bowlful of black raspberries!

Sort of a perfect day for yours truly. I ended it tired, but happy to have been out in the garden, with the little bunny chomping on grass at a safe distance. Until I apparently got too close and he ran up to the back forty. He’s dining on the grass outside our living room window as I write this post.

Happy Wednesday.

ClaudiaSignature140X93

Collecting Roseville Pottery: References, Prices & Marks

Quirky

Gardening, Berry Picking, Bunny Watching

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

Archives