Pottery Mark Query - Van Briggle - Not ?

by Jackie
(Portland)

Pottery Mark Query - Van Briggle - Not ?:- Hello ... My Mom and Grandma left 2 houses *full* of collectibles ... antiques ... and just plain old stuff ... which I cleared out nearly 10 years ago.

This ranged from the sublime, to the ridiculous, and back again !

Everything from Great Great Grandma's 19th century porcelain to Great Grandpa's glasses and Mission oak rocking chair ... to 1950s fair stuff ... to full sets of Fiesta ware ...

We had 16 full sets of dishes, 4 microwaves, 5 full suites of furniture, tv's going back to the 1950s, and fashions going back to the 1930s ... and that is just the tip of the iceberg !

Lots of it has been given away back in 1996 and 2000 ... anything useful and modern was given to church charity stores to give away to people and/or to sell what they could for their good works ... 26 truckloads ... yes, that is TRUCKLOADS, a 1 ton van ... out to charities, and 5 truckloads to 1800GotJunk ...

Now ... what I am left with, are some things I am wishing to keep ( some ) , and sell ( some ) , and give away to the Church charity bazaar ( lots ! ) ...

The problem is, I don't know what some of this is ! ... Mom was meticulous about looking things up in books, but ... she didn't mark the items ... she only mades notes in the books ... and, alas, her books were destroyed in a flood ... ( The items themselves were not in the flood, they were stored upstairs ) ... so some of it has me puzzled ...

I'll give you this one ferinstance ... She has a little tag on this one, one of the rare ones to have a tag on it, that says Van Briggie pre 1920 ... by which I assume she meant Van Briggle ( Mom was dyslexic, and had trouble with writing and spelling, but was a keen researcher - usually ) ...

However on this piece, it doesn't seem possible that it could be, and it seems some homemade old piece of tat, to me ... ( She was a decades-long garage-sale-shopper, and haunted the shows and sales for good stuff, as well as the out-of-the-way thrift shops for more what I would call " Junque " ;-)

This is a flat plate-type thing, heavy, thick, white pottery short rim on the back, decorative 'fluted' edge all round ... looks like the sort of thing made to set a hot teapot on ... It is shiny glazed, with a few little handpainted looking crude flowers, and what appears to be transfers, under the glaze, on the front ... brown flowers and a gaudy red rose ... There is a light cocoa-colored glaze on the edges, and it is either crudely done, or very old, or both ... There are black speckles here and there , and lots of little 'bubbles' on the back glaze ... The mark, which is what may have confused Mom ( or maybe I'm the one who is confused ;-) ... looks a little like a triangular broad-based A , but with a squiggley line almost like a lazy Z going across the th inside middle, instead of a straight line, and a little line coming down inside ...

If you turn it sideways, the incised little mark almost looks like Mt. Fuji outline with the snowline ... but then what is that little line coming down in the center ? ...

The mark is small, less than 1/2" x 1/2" wide ... The plate / teapot trivet / flue cover , whatever you want to call it , is 7-1/2" across ...

There is no date, no company, no country, nothing else on this ... looks like it was put into the clay with a fine little stick ...

She seemed to think it was late Victorian / early Edwardian era ... ie: 1899 - 1915 sort of thing ... I think it looks like a homemade something from ceramics class ... Mom did a lot of ceramics herself, from the 1940s, 50s & 60s, and she says it seems too highly glazed to be homemade ... I'm thinking it could be 1970s homemade, but ... it was in with some of Grandma's things from earlier than that ?

It is impossible to get the mark to show up ... I've scanned the front of the piece ... the little label with the writing is what Mom put on there more than 15 years ago, and she's been gone for years, bless her heart, so I sure can't ask her anymore.

The color is closer to the whiter looking pic ...

Sorry to be so confusing here ... and time consuming ... but I literally have about 100 boxes of stuff to go through still and need help from you good folks on this one first !

Thank You -
Jackie

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Pottery Mark Query - Van Briggle - Not ?

Hi Jackie

Many thanks for submitting, and hope you are finding the site useful. I love the expressive way you write about your family heirlooms. Sounds like you have got some treasure to sift through! Many thanks for contributing your fascinating story.

Van Briggle is outside my own area of knowledge, but we do have some regular contributors who know about these things. Trouble is often getting solutions on this public forum can be a slow process.

I don't know whether you are aware of it, but I run an expert liaison service which deals with lots of your type. There is a free advisory service about what things may be worth paying to have evaluated and which not. Then there are big discounts for the sort of quantities you are talking about and it may well be worth your while.

Here's what to do, first go to the valuations and assessment page. There you will find my direct email address. Email me direct and I will advise you step by step. This service deals with all types of vintage and antique collectibles, not just china.

Here's the page to go to:-

My vintage and antique china values page

Knowledgeable contributors please try to help with this Van Briggle (not) query if you can (check out the comments section below for replies).

For general advice on how to either price up your collection or find replacements for it, I wrote this page: The Searching Secrets To Finding Your China Replacement Online ….more.

For specific advice on how to ‘save a search’ on eBay (for pricing or finding your desired item) go here: How to easily find replacements, prices and information on vintage and antique china online ..... more

Best regards

Peter (Admin)

www.figurines-sculpture.com (This is Peter Holland's bigger site covering all aspects of fine china making)
www.figurinecollect.com (These pages show Peter’s new English made bone china figurine collection)

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HOW I BUILT THIS WEBSITE ....more