More china uncovered yesterday. And some bottles, too.
A couple of the pieces had this ornate mark near the edge of the plate. I briefly wondered if it was a monogram, but I don’t think it is. But I am getting a bigger sense of the design. I see a fleur-de-lis as well. It looks like very formal china – maybe a wedding set? The stuff you would use on very special occasions?
Here’s the mark:
Is it V E & F?
V E G F?
V E & P?
V E G P?
I’m searching.
Does the P. mean plate?
It’s a mystery.
I was in the midst of soaking all the pieces and gently washing them when I found that one was not like all the others.
Of course, this is my favorite piece. I’d love to find more. Isn’t it lovely?
Don is really into all of this. He found two more bottles before I had finished my first cup of morning coffee.
Well, it’s Labor Day. Let’s hope that all of us who labor and need to earn a living will find work in the next several months. That’s my wish for today.
I’m feeling slightly better, but instead of mowing, which was my first instinct this morning, I’m going to hold off for a day or two and give this crap time to leave my system. I have other chores to complete today and deductions to calculate this coming week for our taxes. There’s plenty on the docket.
It’s a gorgeous day out there and we grabbed the opportunity to have our second cup of coffee out on the porch. These days on the porch will become increasingly precious, so we’re going to take advantage of them as much as possible.
Stay safe.
Happy Monday.
Have a good good day. Love the pieces of china…history there. Hope you and Don have employment in the next few months…a vaccine…thus life goes on…Don is having fun discovery pieces of the past…wonderful…I ordered Penny book from library…will continue to enjoy Ruth Rendell…brendab
Hi Brendab – I really enjoy Ruth Rendell too and have read most of her books. I was fortunate enough to meet her once at book reading, she was so interesting. She also wrote as Barbara Vine and it was one of these novels that she gave her talk on. It was titled Asta’s Book though I think it has a different title in the States.
I don’t think we’ll be working at all for at least another 6 months. Broadway has delayed any openings until at least January.
Stay safe, Brenda
how pretty! and that last little piece you showed is my favorite, too. hope you find more of them and as much of their story as you can.
when i first looked at the mark, i thought it was “VE & F” with a “P” under the line. after a second look, i’m sticking with that guess.
hope you get to feeling better soon. mowing can wait!
i started the day with distressing news … one of my little great-nephews was exposed to covid-19 at daycare. :( he’s now quarantining and has no signs of it, but i would very much appreciate prayers for him and his family. he turns two a week from tomorrow. thanks again very much.
yesterday afternoon i started rearranging closets … i had put away what i could, in a bit of a hurry, but in a way that seemed best when i first moved in. lately those choices were bugging me so i fixed it. in 500 square feet, there’s not much room to empty out most of one closet to put other stuff in there, so it took a long time, but it’s 90% done and that’s good. :)
and we are supposed to get rain tonight. :)
hope you have an easy day and feel better!
stay safe!
kathy in iowa
Prayers and thoughts for the sweet little one, kathy!!
hej, chris k in wisconsin …
thank you very much for the prayers! i know you have that same kind of separation from your sweet little princess … also NO thanks to covid-19. hope you get to see her soon and not just through photos and zoom (though that’s better than not at all).
hope you and your family are all well and safe.
and good luck on the presidential battle for wisconsin.
kathy in iowa
Prayers for your little man Kathy!
hej, donnamae!
it’s a lot of watching, waiting (hard … i seem to have zero patience right now) and praying, even more now … but i believe in the power of prayer and especially in God who hears them. so, thank you very much for your prayers!
hope you and your family are well and safe!
kathy in iowa
Hi Kathy – will pray for your little great nephew and his family that they are safe and well.
hej, dee dee.
thanks very much for praying for my great-nephew and his family (his mother is my oldest niece).
this is such a hard and kind of crazy time, isn’t it? your prayers help and are much appreciated.
hope you and those you love are well and safe!
kathy in iowa
Prayers for your little guy and his parents!
hej, kelly.
thank you so much for praying!
though exposure could happen just about any time (hate that), hopefully we get good news soon.
hope you and your family are safe and well.
thanks again. the prayers are much appreciated!
kathy in iowa
Well, V E & F brings up nothing on a Google search. Darn.
Prayers for your nephew, Kathy. Poor baby!
Stay safe.
thanks very much for the prayers, claudia!
he’s not showing any symptoms and i hope and pray that he and his little family stay well.
he turns two a week from tomorrow and i hate that anyone ever has (had) to be alone on their birthday, especially children. he obviously won’t be alone, but we won’t be able to gather as we’d like. and he’s too young to understand why we can’t do certain things yet, like hug and carry him and snuggle. :(
and that it happens thousands of times a day around the world just breaks my heart even more.
wtf … wear the facemask!
hop you and don have a good night. stay safe!
and thanks again for the prayers. very much appreciated!
kathy in iowa
hope …
kathy in iowa
xo
Oh, that’s no fun. He should have a party and now he can’t.
Stay safe, Kathy.
oh, the poor little guy, and I absolutely DO pray for his safety, kathy (I’ve worried about the daycares)
Wonderful treasures! I have been saving the finds accumulated over 35 years of home ownership in a big glass jar. Last year it paid off when I was able to gift a Bakelite handled fork (recovered in a heat duct) to the man who grew up in our house. He recognized it as his mother’s. Hmmmm. Wonder how it found its way into an air duct? Who knew collecting treasures is a form of mudlarking? Good luck on your china identification.
What a lovely gift that must have been!
Thank, Ingrid
Stay safe!
Love those treasures! I have lived in three very old houses and have never found anything worthwhile buried in the gardens. I’m a bit late in responding to “what are you reading”,but I do have a few TBR.Today I shall begin the latest Louse Penney and following that Once in a Great City and,because you have written so glowingly about Michael Connelly, I have a copy of The Late Show. I confess I have never read him.
He’s a pretty great writer, Annette. I hope you like The Late Show. I sure did!
Stay safe.
Smart to take it easy today!! I told my hubs this morning, that this is what Labor Day is set aside for us to do!! Our final flag of this year was delivered and set up in our front yard this morning courtesy of the HS Music Dept. It is standing proudly next to our Biden/ Harris sign!!
Those plate fragments! How beautiful! Once Don gets involved he becomes a man on a mission!! So great! Hope you find out some interesting details. Were the home owners previous to you “locals”, and is anyone from the family still in the area? The fragment with the blues and greens is just lovely.
Hoping you have a quiet and peaceful day with little labor involved. We are supposed to go into the 50’s for highs the next couple of days. My friend in Denver texted me that it was 96* yesterday, supposed to be 92* today and tomorrow they have a Winter Storm Watch with temps around 34*. Craziness!! You are right…. enjoy these days on the porch!
There were several previous homeowners but we only know of two, the guy before us was a ‘weekender’ and the woman who lived here before that was an eccentric cat lady. The house was built in 1891, so it’s been around a long time!
Crazy and scary weather everywhere!
Stay safe, Chris.
It is from before 1891 because that is when it became mandatory to put the country on the back. After about 1920 everything had to say “made in” whatever country.
Those pieces are gorgeous, and that one area almost looks like it was for royalty. Lucky you ! Do you think there are enough pieces for a restorer to put it/them back together ?
I remember virtually nothing of the course I took about middens prob in the 70s.
Connie in CT
Probably not. There were pieces found on the other side of the house a few years back and now these which are far from the first find. They’re all over the place. None of the ones in the picture fit together.
Stay safe, Connie!
The plate is very pretty, I’m certainly not an expert but it looks 19th century to me. I wonder if the lower P indicates the year of manufacture?
Hope your allergies improve and you have a rest for a few days.
I have a spare copy of the October issue of Country Living UK that I would like to send to you (there’s an interview with one of your favourites😀) but I understand if you don’t wish to pass on your address.
Happy Monday
I will email you with our address Dee Dee. Thank you!
Stay safe.
Beauty, history, and mystery. Looks like at least 4 families broke their dishes on your property over the past 200 years. Just imagine what their lives must have been like…The bottle is interesting. I would love to be a mudlark, altho they came from pretty grim times. Nowadays people can do it for fun, not just survival. I hope you feel better. I’ve noticed a bit of allergy reactions over the past week, but thankfully I don’t have to be out much and our a/c keeps a lot of pollens out. I had to laugh a little about Don’s good tries at substitutions at the grocery store because as my husband ages, his choices usually contain a surprise, despite the writing of the list in large letters and a daily “meeting” before he goes. I’d shop myself but he hates it when I buy certain brand names that to me taste better than generic. Stay safe and sane!
Don usually is the best shopper, he was just dealing with answering their text while he was driving, so he wasn’t thinking too clearly!
Thanks, Nora!
Stay safe.
You had asked where I found the musical dogs (LOL) and they were from an Etsy site called alinasattic2020. I double checked over the weekend and her shop is no longer there! She had some very fun gothic designs and other trinkets. Sorry that it seems she couldn’t survive the Covid economy.
I have found several shops that I loved which have disappeared over the past year. It’s sad, isn’t it?
xo
Hope you find a few more pieces of the flowered china, it is pretty and interesting. I have a set of china similar to the first design, given to me by a friend who inherited it and didn’t want it. I have never used it and don’t plan to, since it is a bit more ornate and fragile than I like. I appreciate dishes that can take being handled by not so gentle men and can go in the microwave and the dishwasher. Maybe our economy will take a leap forward in the near future and I could sell it.
Take care,
Kelly
Yes this is far too ornate for my taste, but I’m fascinated enough to try to figure out who manufactured it.
Stay safe, Kelly.
How great is it to find evidence of past residents on your property. That plate looks so very formal. Wonder what kind of meals were served on it.
I prefer to get my own things from the grocery. It’s my only outing, after all. I always have a list and just quickly go around getting what I need. When this pandemic is done I’ll probably have forgotten what it’s like to just cruise a store’s aisles, any kind of store, just to look at stuff for the heck of it.
Feel better.
Kay
Yes, we’re going back to that – going in person. It’s easier, in that we can make decisions in the moment, or search the rear of the shelves for something that might not be visible from the front.
Thanks, Kay.
Stay safe.
did a little sleuthing about that mark and found a possibility …
back in the 1780s, the virginia electric and power company (now known as dominion) had subsidiaries that operated, among other things, streetcars and a railroad company. i looked through some vintage railroad dinnerware and other memorabilia … didn’t find any for ve&p or that matched the gold-on-white pattern you showed us … but maybe with a bit more time, can rule this in or out …?
don’t know if this will lead to an answer for you, but i hope it does.
have a good night.
kathy in iowa
Do you mean 1880s? That’s a possibility, but it’s hard to imagine them producing something this ornate unless it was for shareholders or something like that. I’ll look into it, Kathy. Thanks so much!
Stay safe.
summarizing from their history: a corporation began in 1787 that later grew into 250 subsidiaries that are all part of “vepco”, what was virginia electric and power company and is now dominion (power company). the “real” start of virginia electric and power (and what is considered to be their “corporate birthday”) was when virginia railway and power was incorporated for buying three large railways in the area on june 29, 1909.
website is ead.lib.virginia.edu …the library of virginia.
and i agree … that gold trim was probably for shareholders as it is very fancy compared to the other railroad dishware i saw online last night.
hope it helps your search.
happy tuesday!
stay safe!
kathy in iowa
Thanks so much, Kathy!
Well of course I envy you for your nice weather (since I’m so dang hot in SoCalif, although we didn’t nearly reach the temps they’d forecasted for today; we stayed in the 90s) but glad you can be enjoying it and also happy to hear you’re feeling a bit better; wise to be gentle with yourself.
Can I ask a stupid question? Maybe I should read to see if it was answered in the comments. Why ARE there bottles and pieces of dishes on your property? Did we discuss this one time and possibly in the 1800s or over the other years there was just a section of the property which was for trash they’d burn or bury? Like these exquisite dishes were probably already broken to begin with?
I lived on close to an acre which had been built on since 1923 but never found anything, and we did plenty of landscape digging; they did have an old incinerator for burning trash. All we found under the house was an old painter’s easel although I was awfully glad to find it! Oh, and these old metal medallions the size of a quarter which must have hung on the rosebushes when they were planted, identifying one of the rose’s names, like I think one was Double Delight. But I looked it up, and one source says although it’s an old-fashioned rose, it only dates from 1977; so, heirloom but nothing of real antiquity. Was a hybrid of two roses, one from the late 50s and the other from the early 60s.
I know with sea glass, old floats and bottles got pitched into the sea from boats or people or nearby factories I think. So it’s always about the ‘discards’ I guess!
Yes, we’ve talked about it before. Before trash collection, local transfer stations and that kind of thing, people buried their trash. It was the only way to dispose of it, especially if you lived in the country.
Stay safe, Vicki!
I saw a snippet on the nightly news Monday about the tribute to Nick Cordero which I think was a benefit for MusicCares (don’t know if I have all these names right or other ‘facts’!); very moving with other actors/singers singing a song for which he was famous; very stirring. Gonna try to find it on youtube.
Ah shoot; read about this in the L.A. Times just now; missed this:
“On Sunday, Broadway on Demand will stream a tribute special to Cordero, featuring performers from the casts of “A Bronx Tale,” “Bullets Over Broadway,” “Rock of Ages,” “The Toxic Avenger” and “Waitress.” The event, benefiting the Save the Music Foundation, will start at 4 p.m. Pacific at broadwayondemand.com.
Just the little-bit I heard was simply wonderful music, voices lifted up in song. Darn.
Yes, I knew it was going on, but I just didn’t want to go there. Too painful.
We saw it, too.
xo
We had a man in town whose hobby was to excavate the sights of old outhouses. He would locate them by surveying the ground behind some of the old homes in our town. They found lots of bottles and broken dishes and pipe stems – because people threw their garbage in their outhouses. They did not have garbage pick up in those olden days. If the outhouses got too full, they would move the location and start again. There was an interesting article about him in our local newspaper several year ago. I wonder if you are digging where once there were outhouses!
Could be, but we’ve found stuff all over the property and I can’t think there were that many outhouses! Sometimes pieces are wrapped in plastic bags. We’ve also found nylon stockings. I know that people in the country often buried their trash.
Thanks, Ellen.
Stay safe.
It sounds like your Labor Day was nice — and sort of perfect. Give the labor a little rest. We did not — Rick got on a cleaning binge which meant I got on a cleaning binge and we labored for the better part of the day. Still, it was good to have it done!
Enjoy the week.
It always feels good to have it done, Jeanie!
Stay safe!