posted on May 18, 2006 05:01:33 PM
Hi ya'all...I'm stuck again and need some assistance. I can't find anything like this anywhere, primarily because I can't figure out exactly what the mark says because the first part of the letters are missing. I thought it could be Clearwater, Bearwater, Rearwater...but coming up with zip! It is what I believe is a small, portable spittoon/cuspidor. It measures only 2 1/2 inches tall by 3 inches wide. Looks to be older, but I'm not sure. Any ideas out there from the professionals? Thanks in advance. LJ
posted on May 18, 2006 05:53:17 PM
Shearwater Pottery of Ocean Springs, Mississippi. If this is a half inch stamp, it's prior to 1960, after that it went up to 3/4" stamp. Is there an artist's mark?
posted on May 19, 2006 05:03:14 AM
I understand that Shearwater Pottery was all but destroyed in the hurricanes last year. My sister had some Shearwater figures that had been sitting in her store for some time. After the hurricane the interest in them was immediate and she could have sold them many times over. If it is Shearwater you will be able to find references to it online.
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“The illiterate of the future will be the person ignorant of the use of the camera as well as of the pen.”
Maholy-Nagy, Vision in Motion, 1947
posted on May 19, 2006 01:37:25 PM
twig125silver - The mark is 1/2 inch in size so it would appear to be the mark prior to 1960 as you suggested. I've looked up some of the Shearwater pieces on eBay and it looks like some items get pretty good prices (maybe due to the hurricane as photosensitive suggested). But I noticed that most of the marks were actually incised. My mark is just printed in black ink. And no, there is no artist's mark that I see.
I did find some information on line about the company and a book that was recently published about it, but I could not find a site where the marks were identified or shown by dates, etc.
Would you agree that this is a cuspidor, even though it is very small in size?
posted on May 29, 2006 02:27:35 PM
twig125silver - I just wanted to say "THANKS" again for the very helpful info you provided on my Shearwater Cuspidor. It's is currently at $103 with 16 watchers (not that watchers means bidders but makes one hope) with 4 hours to go, and we all know what can happen in the last few minutes of an auction. I would have never gotten that kind of money had I just posted it as an unknown maker's mark piece of pottery.
posted on May 31, 2006 05:12:23 AM
twig - it had a very uneventful finish - $103.52. So the bids never went up in the final minutes as I'd hoped, but then again...I never thought I'd get that much for it. Not knowing what it was, I would have probably put it into my shop for $8!
Hope I can repay the favor and assist you sometime.
