Vernon Kilns Early California Pink Bread Plate
From Vernon Kiln's first offering, Early California, to the California Colorware scene, this is the fruit bowl in pink.
Dimensions: 5-1/2" diameter, 1-1/4" tall
Condition: Great vintage used shape
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There's a lot of confusion over the maker of Early California. There really shouldn't be any confusion as almost all of Early California is stamped with a maker's mark, but good ol' unreliable Replacements.com and lazy sellers that take them for face value and don't do any additional research turn a simple identification into wide spread confusion.
Metlox never made Early California, and Replacements attributes it to "Metlox - Poppytrail - Vernon". Poppytrail was a division of Metlox, and there is no entity named "Vernon". There was "Vernon Kilns", the maker of Early California, and there was "Vernonware", the dinnerware division of Metlox. Metlox didn't even purchase Vernon Kilns. When Vernon Kilns went out of business, they purchased some of their molds and reproduced those lines under the Vernonware brand name. Metlox had no involvement ever in the production or selling of Early California. Unless you are well informed, in the antique and vintage world, you need to be able to trust that the item you are buying is what the seller is saying it is and anyone copying right out of Replacements.com is very likely making other false product claims in their shop. If you're going to sell something online and you probably are asking them to pay a premium price because the item is vintage, your research into that items past should not stop at the Replacements.com listing. This is just seller laziness, and I believe the bar should be a lot higher.
Anyway, let me tell you about Early California and Vernon Kilns. EC was VKs first line of California Colorware. It was first made in 1935 on their Montecito shape, which was a shape they would use on many of their early dinnerware lines, on a staggering nine colors. Bauer had been producing Colorware for the past 6 years, and competitors like Pacific and Gladding-McBean were already several years in the race. Over the next 5 years new colors, like maroon and white, would come in and out of the mix as the approaching War made the materials for some glaze colors difficult to obtain. 11 years after the first pieces of Early California were made, Vernon Kilns was producing this line in only 5 colors.
Vernon's offerings to the Colorware scene would soon grow, and Early California would soon be accompanied by Modern California, the pastel version of Early California; Coronado, the Montecito shape with a band design; Native California, a new shape designed by Royal Hickman; and one of my favorites, Ultra California, a modern shape with down turned edges and upside down handles on the hollowware pieces,
In the years after the War, Vernon would succumb to a fate common for California potteries at the time. A plant fire in the midst of trying to compete with cheaper Asian ceramic imports. Eventually, like many before and many after them, Vernon Kilns would call it quits and shut its doors for good. It's at that point that Metlox became producing Vernon shapes under their Vernonware label, over 20 years after Early California was first produced.
This is the bread plate from Early California in pink. It measures 6-1/2" in diameter. All of the plates in this listing are in great vintage shape with no cracks, chips or crazing.
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For the other California pottery items in my shop, including other Early California pieces, please visit: https://www.etsy.com/shop/MostlyMidCenturySF?ref=seller-platform-mcnav§ion_id=26560656