Teapot Tuesday...
Mar. 8th, 2005 09:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
senoritafishHaven't done this in a while. Every time I think about doing this, Tuesday is over with. This time, I started on Monday and still almost didn't get it done on Tuesday (ha! This sentence was actually written last Tuesday).
Hall Parade Teapot
I found this teapot at an antiques show I went to with my friend ML. One of our supervisors does (or did) garage saleing (saling? sailing?) on the weekend and she and her husband have a little side business selling antiques and collectibles. We had gone to the show to check out her booth, but I found this in another booth. It attracted me when I first saw it because it reminded me of Fiesta ware, and was of the same vintage, but the pattern of lines on it was slightly different. The dealer told me it was a pattern called Parade.
...And it had this keen hook as part of the top to keep the lid from sliding off when you are pouring your tea...
In my recent Ebay explorations, I've found this teapot was made by a company call Hall, which made a number of very interesting teapots. This design seems to show up fairly often, and is called a Hall Parade hook lid teapot, which was first made in 1940. All the ones for sale, that I've seen so far, have some gold trim in the shape of acorns and oak leaves and lines of gold on the ridges on the side of the pot. Mine lacks the trim, although it is the same yellow color (the only color I've seen it in). I think I like it better plain - the gold trim just looks a little fussy to me.
(one that was for sale on Ebay...)
These sellers would probably consider it sacrilege that I actually still use mine to make tea. But the handle is shaped nicely, fits well in the hand, and is well balanced when pouring, unlike the Fiesta ware pot I have, whose circular handle is really too small for my hands (darn my dad anyway, giving me his stubby mechanic's hands, instead of my mom's graceful pianist's fingers - [my brother got those]).
They also made another shape of hook lid teapot, which comes in different colors. I'll have to keep my eye out for a cobalt one at a reasonable price, although the lid shape on this one is not as graceful.
Okinawa teapot
This teapot has some history behind it.
My father quit high school to join the Navy in World War II, at the age of 17. His destroyer, the USS Stormes, stopped at Okinawa after the major battle there. I don't recall the detail of his entire story (I'll have to quiz him about it, and put it here or in![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
deadwood_bob later), but I believe he told me his patrol came across a school building that appeared to have been completely demolished by a tank, by which force he didn't know. Among the wreckage, he found this teapot. He was probably all of nineteen at the time.
It amazed him that it was totally undamaged, except for the rattan handle which was broken then as it is now. Maybe it was the pot teachers had used on their breaks - the interior is very dark with tea stains. He put it in his backpack, somehow managed to get it back across the Pacific Ocean to California, and gave it to his mother when he got home. It sat in her china cupboard for the next 50 years. She pointed it out to me a few times as I was growing up, but she always said it was my uncle who brought it back. After she passed away, it came to live in our china hutch.
We have never used this one. I'm quite sure my grandmother didn't either. Now 79, Dad says he now feels somewhat guilty for taking it, and thinks sometimes he should take it back to Okinawa, and maybe try to find out who it belonged to (or their relatives), and return it.
Hall Parade Teapot
I found this teapot at an antiques show I went to with my friend ML. One of our supervisors does (or did) garage saleing (saling? sailing?) on the weekend and she and her husband have a little side business selling antiques and collectibles. We had gone to the show to check out her booth, but I found this in another booth. It attracted me when I first saw it because it reminded me of Fiesta ware, and was of the same vintage, but the pattern of lines on it was slightly different. The dealer told me it was a pattern called Parade.
...And it had this keen hook as part of the top to keep the lid from sliding off when you are pouring your tea...
In my recent Ebay explorations, I've found this teapot was made by a company call Hall, which made a number of very interesting teapots. This design seems to show up fairly often, and is called a Hall Parade hook lid teapot, which was first made in 1940. All the ones for sale, that I've seen so far, have some gold trim in the shape of acorns and oak leaves and lines of gold on the ridges on the side of the pot. Mine lacks the trim, although it is the same yellow color (the only color I've seen it in). I think I like it better plain - the gold trim just looks a little fussy to me.
(one that was for sale on Ebay...)
These sellers would probably consider it sacrilege that I actually still use mine to make tea. But the handle is shaped nicely, fits well in the hand, and is well balanced when pouring, unlike the Fiesta ware pot I have, whose circular handle is really too small for my hands (darn my dad anyway, giving me his stubby mechanic's hands, instead of my mom's graceful pianist's fingers - [my brother got those]).
They also made another shape of hook lid teapot, which comes in different colors. I'll have to keep my eye out for a cobalt one at a reasonable price, although the lid shape on this one is not as graceful.
Okinawa teapot
This teapot has some history behind it.
My father quit high school to join the Navy in World War II, at the age of 17. His destroyer, the USS Stormes, stopped at Okinawa after the major battle there. I don't recall the detail of his entire story (I'll have to quiz him about it, and put it here or in
deadwood_bob later), but I believe he told me his patrol came across a school building that appeared to have been completely demolished by a tank, by which force he didn't know. Among the wreckage, he found this teapot. He was probably all of nineteen at the time.It amazed him that it was totally undamaged, except for the rattan handle which was broken then as it is now. Maybe it was the pot teachers had used on their breaks - the interior is very dark with tea stains. He put it in his backpack, somehow managed to get it back across the Pacific Ocean to California, and gave it to his mother when he got home. It sat in her china cupboard for the next 50 years. She pointed it out to me a few times as I was growing up, but she always said it was my uncle who brought it back. After she passed away, it came to live in our china hutch.
We have never used this one. I'm quite sure my grandmother didn't either. Now 79, Dad says he now feels somewhat guilty for taking it, and thinks sometimes he should take it back to Okinawa, and maybe try to find out who it belonged to (or their relatives), and return it.
