14 inch c1910 baseball plate

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Posted By: CarltonHendricks

I received the plate, and now that I can examine it in person, the only marking is the red circled one I already posted. It says “35S”, see the close up photo above.

I found a site called porcelainmarksandmore.com and emailed them for insight into my plate before I‘d even gotten it. I received a reply from the sight’s owner Christopher Simon Marshall, see it below. After I emailed a close up photo of the red circled mark, he retracted his assertion the S was an 8, and agreed it was 35S

Christopher puts forth a lot of speculation, but nothing conclusive. I feel one of the most important assertions he makes is he seems to feel strongly it wasn’t made by a company, but rather an individual.

Quote:
“So the item could easily been made by a former German citizen who immigrated to the US shortly before he took up porcelain decorating which was (not only at that time) a popular hobby because I doubt it was made by a company - those all had their hallmarks and would have never used handwriting only.”

Unquote:
Moreover, perhaps at some point, the plate Brock G. uncovered will help in some way, determining the origin of mine.

See email below:

From Christopher Simon Marshall:
Highly peculiar item; not that I can recognize who made it. The impressed number has an '8' at the end, not an 'S' by the way. Now, the decoration looks fairly good and matches a few items from around that period. What has me confused a little is the writing on the back ... I would guess the item was decorated by someone related to the US / baseball whatever and who lived in Germany. Note that baseball is no European sport at all; 99 percent of all folks here would not even recognize a baseball pitch. So not only is the depiction of baseball poeculiar enough, 'Two men down' is also a 'specialized' game flow term nobody here would use - similar to 'Howzatt?' in the Brit game of cricket.

Then we have 'Hand painted' on the back. Many people have had near brutal discussions if the writing style (apart or one word) has anything to do with the origin - I personally doubt it because I can offer proof of various versions made in England, Germany or the US; numbers however can say more. And here's the next point: the plate backside shows 'No. 5010'. While the '1' is a runic-influenced "long-upstoke" version typically found in nordic influenced countries like Germany, the '5' is not as dominant as it would normally be in a 'real' German number.

On top of that no German would use such an 'No.' abbreviation. First of all the use of the superscript, underlined 'o' never was common in Germany; that's more British or French. And of course the German abbreviation for 'Number' always was 'Nr.' (short form of 'Nummer').

But then we stumble over the last remark: "35 cm", the size of the plate in metrics (35/2.54 = 13.78 inches) which is correct. Thinking back in time, the proposed age of the plate would indicate a period before England even adapted metric currency (still counting with Pence, Shillings, Pounds and Guinees). So how high would the possibility be that somebody used METRICS on a plate - except he was of German or Austrian origin.

Perhaps some people would claim the plate is a fake or a repro. I don't know and I won't guess - I only look at what is definate and obvious. But I must add that my father (as Brit) constantly confused English and German terms, sizes, weights etc. ... and still does even after living in Krautland for 40 years. So the item could easily been made by a former German citizen who immigrated to the US shortly before he took up porcelain decorating which was (not only at that time) a popular hobby because I doubt it was made by a company - those all had their hallmarks and would have never used handwriting only. Also note that according to the McKinley Tarriff Act (and based on the British Merchandise Act) a company would have been forced to add the exact wording "Made in Germany" from around 1900/1905 onwards.

Chris