California Pottery and Metlox Poppytrail

Lately, I've been buying a lot of California pottery -- Bauer, Franciscan & Metlox.  Two of the more recent pieces I've gotten were a swordfish vase & two swirl candlesticks by Metlox, and they made me want to know more about their history.

Sailfish vase & swirl candlsticks

Over the years I've become pretty familiar with the whole whole West Virginia/Ohio/Pennsylvania pottery industry (including the factory tour at Homer Laughlin -- a must-do, if you ever get the chance).  I didn't know much about California pottery, though, so I did what any so-last-century person does:  got a book out of the library!

This is a great book by Carl Gibbs Jr. -- all the information (and book pictures) in this blog post come from this book & he gets full credit!

1920s:  Metlox was started by TC Prouty & his son, Willis.  They'd moved from Michigan to California and began working in tile in 1920.  They started Metlox in Manhattan Beach, CA in 1927 & made outdoor signs and insulators for neon tubes.  The name Metlox is a combination of Metal and Oxide, which refers to the pigments in their glazes.  In 1931, Willis took over when his dad passed away and, after seeing what Bauer was doing with pottery dinnerware & how popular it was, he started the pottery lines we're familiar with now.

Their dinneware was equally colorful and pretty as Homer Laughlin's Fiesta line!

1930s:  In 1934, he had the '200 series' or Poppytrail line (my swirl candlesticks), followed by the artware line in 1935 (my swordfish vase -- which I found out is really a sailfish).  My sailfish was designed and signed by Carl Romanelli.  That was followed by Pintoria, Yorkshire and Mission Bell.  All of these were solid color pottery pieces.

1940s:  They stopped production during WWII and Prouty sold to Evan Shaw in 1946.  Shaw hired Bob Allen and Mel Shaw (no relation), who were animators & created lots of animal lines for Metlox.  They started doing painted pieces, like this California Ivy relish dish.  The hand-decorated lines were their most popular and rivaled Franciscan's Desert Rose line.

Vernon Kilns plaid salt & pepper and a California Ivy relish dish

1950s:  They bought Vernon Kilns (of the Blair plaids, like this salt and pepper and painted pot) and started using their molds & patterns.  This is the same way Homer Laughlin continued to produce pieces for companies they bought out in the midwest.

Blair handpainted decorative pot

1954 Free Form gravy boat -- I love this line, with its atomic-era shapes!

My newest find at the antique mall -- a large (13") Free Form platter!

1960s:  This was the high point for Metlox -- by then, their only main competitor was Franciscan.  They sold lots of their lines to department stores.

1970s:  Hand-decorated and open-stock dishes went out of style and people wanted boxed sets.  Metlox couldn't compete with foreign manufacturers (mainly Japan).  They still had the little animal line, though, and some planters called 'Poppets' that were designed by Helen Slater & which were very popular.

1989:  Metlox closed its doors for good.  They were the last California pottery works to go out of business. This is all that's left of the Manhattan Beach factory.

The old Metlox sign -- all that's left at Manhattan Beach

Here are some other California pottery pieces:

Franciscan Autumn Leaves divided dish

Franciscan ceramic tray, Gladding McBean (Franciscan) butter dish and Patio line salt & pepper

Franciscan condiment set

That's what I love about buying, selling & collecting vintage:  no matter how much I know, there's always something new to learn about!

Frogs, Franciscan and Charles Lindbergh

Since I went back to work at my day job, I never get to do any good shopping on Thursdays.  I have to wait until I get off of work in the mid-afternoon and by then all the good junk finds have been snapped up by the earlier shoppers.  Once in a while I stop at a few sales on my way home anyway.

Yesterday, there was a sub sale right by where I work and my friend Bargain Hunter let me know that one of the houses had old Fisher Price.  So I headed for the sub, but not with very high hopes. 

As I expected, there were MANY frogs ...there were lots of sales with baby & kid stuff (I skipped those) and the rest was pretty picked over.  The FP stuff that Bargain Hunter saw was actually newer than what I look for, but I did get 4 records for the record player for free (always good because the records get lost and are often missing). 

I stopped at one sale, though, because I saw a HUGE 'Everything MUST Go' sign.  There was a real estate SOLD sign in the front yard and the homeowner looked exhausted.  I think this was the last effort before moving.  On one table she had these little treasures:

Gladding McBean ribbed butter dish (only about 6-7" long) and G-McB 'Patio' salt and pepper shakers.  Gladding McBean was bought by Franciscan, who continued producing pottery in their name

A turquoise Franciscan footed tray.  I don't know what this would have been used for, though.

 I was very excited to get them for next to nothing!  I just LOVE Franciscan-ware (especially the solid colors) -- what a bargain!

After several more froggy sales, I headed home.  I hit one more sale that I passed on my way and almost didn't stop.  I'm so glad that I did!  Though almost everything was new, there were 3 or 4 old plates on a table.  I picked one up and the owner said 'YOU know what you're looking at!  YOU'RE the first person who's noticed that all day.  Everyone else just wanted the Beanie Babies'.  I was so afraid he'd want too much for it, but he gave me a great, tiny price.  I think he was just happy that someone appreciated it as much as he did.  What was it?  Here it is:

A 1927 Limoges plate commemorating Lucky Lindbergh's trans-Atlantic flight from New York to Paris. 

I did the happy dance right in front of him and his wife -- I didn't even try to act cool about it.  I LOVE this plate and am sure I'm going to keep it.

See?  There can be a prince (or two) even when you're surrounded by frogs!