Ceramic mugs

[Angel of Mercy]

Hello all,
I wasn't sure if this should go here or on the "Citizens Buy, Sell, Trade Forum", but my question is where would one purchase a ceramic mug for a civilian impression for a reasonable price? I didn't see anything listed in the vendors section on ceramic mugs. Any ideas?

[Rebecca Ricketts]

Re: Ceramic mugs

**Commercial Content Removed by Moderator**

Thanks,
Rebecca Ricketts

[Vuhginyuh]

Re: Ceramic mugs

Krystin

Here are a few options, all originals. The first two, Mocha and Lustre Wares and the forth example, Sunderland, are relatively easy to find and and at afforable prices. The third is an early 18th century saltglazed stoneware and very rare and the fifth is an English tinglaze commonly called delft.

left to right; Mocha Ware (1850), Luster Ware (1830), Fulham Shops Queen Anne tankard (1700), Sunderland (1840), Tinglaze/ Delft (1740) and a Bristol brown English stoneware (1850)*.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
*Often grouped into the Doulton and Royal Doulton family.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

[paulcalloway]

Re: Ceramic mugs

Hello! I am a potter who makes 17th century reproduction wares. I make many peices mugs being one of them. I am currently working with eatherware (which it is what I would have in stock at the moment) but I also work in salt glazed stoenware. Some of my work will soon be used at the Shakertown event this fall. If you are interested in mugs or anything else let me know and I can tell you what I have on hand, what I make, and a price list.

Thanks,
Rebecca Ricketts

Rebecca
If you are interested in selling items on the AC, you need to pursue becoming an approved vendor. Otherwise, take it to private emails please.

[Angel of Mercy]

Re: Ceramic mugs

Thank you everyone,
What I'm looking for is something simple in color and style and affordable. I'm kind of low on money with school starting up, saving money for college, and starting WWII. I volunter at Fort Delaware as a laundress, and want something that would look correct that I would have brought with me from home. Any ideas? Thanks!

***Commercial Content Removed by Moderator*****

[Spinster]

Re: Ceramic mugs

Since you are over on the east coast, and looking for an item "brought from home", I somehow think you are looking for something that would have been considered expendable and sturdy, something that you wouldn't cry if you broke it as you moved with the army in 1860 something.

For that description, I would consider some form of redware, a pottery ware common earlier in the century, but out of fashion by the CW. Essentially the same idea as your mom sending you off to school with her old everyday dishes (and buying new ones herself).

Good quality reproductions are produced by Colonial Williamsburg, Old Sturbridge Village, and New Salem. We've been using them for about 3 years. We're pretty active, and pretty hard on all our gear and have not broken one yet.

Another excellent alternative is the work of Dan Perkins. For a good while, Dan's been digging up priveys and mining other CW and prior period sites for examples to copy. His thick cups and bowls are a delight, with excellent glazes. They are rather heavy--when traveling light, I tend to take one of his mugs and a big spoon as my only food implements. Finding Dan at an event is the luck of the draw--he has a full time job, does runs of his pottery occassionally, and usualy sends them off with other folks to sell. Most reliably, I've found his goods with a young man who reproduces period banjos--listen for a good sounding banjo at an event, and see if its the right guy.

[Vuhginyuh]

Re: Ceramic mugs

As with anything in our area of interest, a ceramic mug can be authentic or junk. Most made today are terrible copies of the originals. I don’t know anyone who fires a period kiln and has low prices too. Why spend hundreds of dollars on a set of clothes or a uniform and then skimp on the small things.

There are many things to look for in a good hand-thrown period mug. Weight, wall thickness, glaze color, clay color, clay type, height and circumference. The shape of the handle matters too, even the sound it makes when you tap it.

Your location and impression makes a difference as well. A Pennsylvania wash woman may have a large Red Ware cup from home. A NC Infantryman could easily have a small green-glazed yellow stoneware cup given to him by the Episcopal Home Mission.

We get bent out of shape over a tin cup being wrong, why not do it here too.

[Virginia Mescher]

Re: Ceramic mugs

We get bent out of shape over a tin cup being wrong, why not do it here too.[/QUOTE]

Tin cups are not necessarly wrong. In _Historic Accounts_ there were quite a few sales of tin cups and all but 5 sales were made in peacetime. Tin plates were also sold to citizens. They were fairly common and in reading about what to take on picnics, tin cups and plates were the most common.

From _Godey's_ Nov. 1859. "There was a tin plate and tin cup for each person."

It would seem that a tin cup would be something that someone may have carried, especially if they were traveling.

[Spinster]

Re: Ceramic mugs

We get bent out of shape over a tin cup being wrong, why not do it here too.

Well, in many cases we do. While military records and contracts often offer good guidance in determining military material goods, civilian goods are not often so easy. Period advertisements and surviving goods may give good guidance, but often do not provide sufficent information to address socio-economic class, and regional differences. I often find the process of documenting civilian goods near to paralysing, when I know facts A-J about the item, but can't find an answer to question K.

And it poses a grand philopsophical challenge--when does something move from being "this old thing" to a prized item from a past time?

Mr. Perkins's cups and glazes look very much like the 1830 example you showed. In 1860, would I have considered it an expendable old thing, or something to be valued and passed down? I kept a few small pieces of my 1975 everyday dishes, but most are long shattered. I now see them popping up in second rate antique malls, but I don't desire to purchase them. Yet, Daugher has staked her claim to a set of similarly inexpensive dishes I acquired in the same period, as the ONE great thing that she desires to have from my home.

So, of the cups you pictured, what would have been a "this old thing" for a laundress to carry, and what would have been the prized item that she left at home for safekeeping?

[Vuhginyuh]

Re: Ceramic mugs

Virginia,

I'm aware of the use of tin ware in everyday life up to the 1930's.
I never meant they (tin cups) were right or wrong. I meant there are good copies and there are bad.
My apologies for any confusion.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Mr. Perkins's cups and glazes look very much like the 1830 example you showed.

Terre,

I trust you have a good eye. I have found that you cannot go on looks alone in this subject.

Surviving examples and archaeological evidence do paint an accurate picture of items of domestic use. That is the information I use.

I know of but one potter working today that still uses purely historic processes and materials. I will provide anyone interested with her contact information through a Private Message.

I agree with your statement on the frugality of the household. The Fulham shops mug I posted above was used by one family off and on for three hundred years. It was discovered with cut flowers in it at an estate sale.I have reposted the image below, it is a style that was popular and almost unchanged for two centuries and fits well into the period.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
I have corrected the image sequence in post #3.

[ElizabethClark]

Re: Ceramic mugs

Terre, good thought: what's treasure versus utility? A laundress is usually going to have something utilitarian on hand... but might a pail of water and a dipper be a more utilitarian thing than a mug? The pail holds more, and is more utilitarian (can dip cool water over the head, hands, etc during work, plus drinking), and would be just as indestructible, but easily replaceable.

[Angel of Mercy]

Re: Ceramic mugs

Wow, thank you everyone for your information, I've learned more about these mugs and their uses and such. At the fort, we do have pails and gallon jugs of water, but we use those pails to carry watter in for washing, and that water comes from the sisterns under the fort...we don't dare drink from the pails or the water. I do have a tin cup that looks farly good >dirty etc< but I was thinking that a mug would maybe look better for my inmpression. Thank you again!

[Vuhginyuh]

Re: Ceramic mugs

Terrie,

To answer your question the pink Lustre Ware (second from left above) would be a good choice because it was so inexpensive. It would cover a large range of society. (It was also made at the Garrison Pottery, also in Sunderland, England, by Dixon & Co, which is very cool.)

However, shards of Mocha ware are found in great numbers on the east coast.

[Vuhginyuh]

Re: Ceramic mugs

I need to make a correction.

The Mocha and the Luster Wares are in fact earthenware clays. Sorry ‘bout that but I don’t think there was a mad rush to buy.

The Mocha is considered to be a peasant ware and was extremely inexpensive. It was one of the widest distributed and exported wares from England.

This being said, if you are interested in procuring an original mug, cup or mustard pot for civilian use it would be the most common imported item of the kind.

Please not the types pictured in post # 3 above.