2nd Time Around Tuesday

I am joining Diane at A Picture is Worth a 1,000 Words for 2nd Time Around Tuesday.  Please join her and see all the second hand treasures.

 

I have a beautiful blue and white stoneware pitcher that is old and I used it for the first time ever in this tablescape.  

 From about 1900 to the 1940s, embossed Blue & White  stoneware was a standard addition of many American households. It was a regular product line manufactured by many potteries in the American Midwest. These potteries manufactured various Stoneware items to fill a broad range of kitchen, personal hygiene, and other necessities.

The variety of pieces is almost endless and includes pitchers, bowls, salt and butter tubs, kitchen canisters, umbrella stands, chamber pots, and many other items. Many of these pieces are decorated with embossed scenes or designs such as forests, birds, animals, people, and flowers. These pieces are lovely art designs in their own right and most are now quite popular and highly collectible.

Several retail stores usually carried a variety of Stoneware in their sales catalogs. However, many pieces were purchased directly from local general stores and some were usually available as "giveaways" -such as buy a bag of flour and a piece of Stoneware was included. Occasionally, the piece had promotional advertising on it, and those pieces are now very collectible.   All this history obtained at this website http://blueandwhitepottery.org/.

 

There are a lot of fakes of this pottery due to it's collectible value.  Usually if you turn it over and it looks too good or perfect on the bottom it is probably a fake.

 

 If it is a fake you might also see seams in the molding of the pottery where it has been reproduced.  The quality is just not as good as in the originals.  Sometimes it is very hard to tell if it is fake.  Mine was  a gift and I am very glad to be using it a 2nd time around.  I will also link to Tuesday Trivia Tie-in at I Refuse to Recede.