In the Beginning........

One of the first things we bought from an internet site was rather large and something we had not seen before and it was almost the last "crock" like piece we added to the collection and is almost the last "crock" like piece we have left.

Then came the green lamp that we found at a local auction held once a week that we just happened to go to one evening.  The lamp base was covered with paper but had been opened to check for a mark and sure enough it was marked Medalta, so after a few more bids than anyone else home it came.










So then we decided no more big crocks or butter churns and slowly we made the switch, I must admit the 1 gallon crocks were the last to go simply because they were smaller but also we had fun trying to find as many different stamps in the 1 gallon as we could, we had 14 before they were all gone.

Once we found the hand painted pieces, advertising and all the brilliant colorful glazes there was no going back!  Large and small, one color and multi-color they are beautiful.







We were encouraged to photograph each item in our collection so one weekend I decided to do exactly that and it took me almost the entire day.  Everything had to be taken out of its spot, dusted off and put in front of the camera.  In many photos you will see a yellow measuring stick so that there is photographic record of the size of each piece.  Once the photos were all taken and checked for lighting, etc it was time to get them printed, with so many to do I found the least expensive place to get them printed and almost 500 prints later we were set.  The next step was get them all in albums and try to remember what our investment in each piece was, that was and still is quite a job.  So to those just starting to collect do the photos and recording before you have 400-500 pieces to do as it is a daunting job!

And the search continues............