It’s a bit Fishy

Last week, we featured a wonderful set of vintage bull plates – this week we have some equally fantastic fish plates!

We bought five of the set in a single purchase and then managed to track down the missing plate in the following days.

It’s now a fabulous and complete set of six.

They’re highly stylised with beautiful detailing – dancing air bubbles, fluttering scales and swirling fins. We certainly haven’t seen anything similar in the local rivers or canals!

They’re from the Aquarius range produced by Washington Pottery in the 1960s. In 1970, Washington Pottery became English Ironstone Pottery Ltd. Three years later, it became English Ironstone Tableware Ltd, so you can trace the age of an item from its back stamp.

As with the bull plates, these colourful fish plates would look amazing displayed on a long shelf or mounted on a wall. Both types are listed in our web shop.

Load of old bull!

We thought that we must have written a post about this range of crockery before. Having looked through our blog archive, it’s had a few mentions, but never a dedicated post. Surely, it deserves one!

This set was featured in yesterday’s Forthcoming Attractions post – and as we commented on there, we love this eccentric, crazy pattern.

Psychedelic, multi-coloured, stylised bulls – what’s not to like?

Some of them just about manage a passable bull hide look, but then this guy just goes completely wild with his pink & turquoise daisy splodges. Fabulous!

As you can see from the base marks, the range is called “Beefeater” and was produced by English Ironstone Pottery Ltd. They date from the early 1970s era. In addition to these oval main course plates, we’ve also come across side plates – and there’s also a more monochrome version of the pattern. They display really well and look great on a long shelf or mounted on a wall.

Forthcoming Attractions: Early March 2016

Here’s a selection of this past week’s vintage buys – quite a blast of colour!

We’ll start off with the West German vases – in gorgeous, vibrant shades of orange. One has the classic bubbling, fat lava glaze and the other a more uniform pattern of impressed marks. We like both styles – and they look great together.

Next up, we have a set of psychedelic bull plates – not exactly subtle shades either! We do love this fun and eccentric range of dinner ware.

This bright red clock is wonderful too – both functional and beautiful. Produced by Metamec in the 1950s/60s it would provide a real flash of vintage style & colour to a kitchen or office wall.

We’ve also picked up this trio of waste paper bins. The one with flowers is marked Worcester Ware – a company who produced some fabulous, everyday metalware. They’re perfect for kids bedrooms or nurseries.

Less bright, but no less attractive, is this collection of garden and laundry items. Last week’s Get their look post featured a lovely traditional laundry area. It had a couple of the vintage washboards on the wall which looked great. We’re big fans of painted and galvanised metal, in general – our own garden is full of old dolly tubs, wash baths, florists pots, dustbins and watering cans. They look attractive, weather nicely – and don’t shatter in the frost!

Groovy Week!

In an average week’s sourcing, we buy items from many eras – from antique rustic stools to modernist stainless steel candle holders. However, for some reason this week’s purchases have all been very 1950s and 60s. As you can see from the photos – atomic, flower power and psychedelic designs are very much in evidence – with slots of bold colours & great patterns.

It’s hard to pick favourites, but the metal waste paper basket by Worcester Ware and the Gaytime measuring jug by Lord Nelson Pottery are outstanding. Other makers include Jie Gantofta for the tea/sugar jars, Kirkham Pottery for the egg cups and English Ironstone Pottery for the bull steak plates.

They’ll be coming to a website near you very soon!!

H is for Home Harbinger

Tag: English Ironstone Pottery

It’s a bit Fishy

Load of old bull!

Forthcoming Attractions: Early March 2016

Groovy Week!