Yesterday I was looking at my site statistics, and noticed someone had googled me (well, they "yahooed" me) with the search words "Alfred Meakin Osiris Solway". For some reason, that name sounded familiar, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out who "Alfred Meakin Osiris Solway" was, or what he had to do with my blog. So I googled that name myself. (I use the real google. ;) ) Then it all came back to me.
Way back in December I asked if anyone knew anything about some china my mom had inherited. This china, made by Alfred Meakin, was the Osiris Solway pattern. Duh.
Well, another useful thing came of my search yesterday. I noticed that someone had posted on a board that they were looking for an Alfred Meakin Osirirs Solway teapot. Hey, I thought, maybe this person knows something about the pattern. It turns out she did! Here's what I now know:
There isn't too much information around relating to this stuff as the Stoke Potteries Museum tell me that there was a fire in the Meakin Factory many years ago which destroyed much of their pattern records for this design.
The china is from Staffordshire (Tunstall works of Alfred meakin) with Osiris being the shape name (sometimes called Harmony for the US market) and Solway being the design and dates from 1928 - 1937. The design uses classic Imari colours in a combination of transfer print and hand painted features. The pattern is available both blue and green colourways.You can check the age of your pieces by visiting www.thepotteries.org/mark/m/meakin_alfred.html where there is a list of backstamps used and when.
This stuff isn't terribly valuable and changes hands for a few pounds only but is very appealing. If you want to have some indication of current values try Ebay. They usually list a few pieces to give some indication.
Thanks Paula Nicholson! She says this information is easily available from the Stoke Potteries Museum, Staffordshire, England. However, I'm not in England, and all my previous google searches turned up was not terribly helpful eBay listings. I just tried checking the museum's page, and although I did find Alfred Meakin, I didn't find this particular pattern. Maybe I just need to look harder. I tried the search, but it appears to be broken.
I checked the back stamp against the site Paula gave me, and it looks like our china is from 1930-1937, since it doesn't have the "Ltd". None of the stamps shown matched exactly, though.
Paula also told me not to worry that the gilding was wearing of, as "it is prone to wear and doesn't seem to be very robust." The gilding is wearing of her dishes too.
Thanks again Paula, for the information, and thank you for letting me post it here. :)
1 comment:
That is fascinating! We used to watch a t.v. program called "Antiques Roadshow" or something like that, where people would have their stuff appraised, and they would learn all about its history from experts.
Hearing the history about how something was made, or where it came from has always been interesting to me.
That's so cool that you learned all that about the china! I'm curious to see what it looks like, so I'm going to go check your link now. :O)
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