14 inch c1910 baseball plate

[Archive]

Posted By: Butch & Co.

After some general salutes and deference to Christopher Marshall's expertise, the eBay forums don't appear able to produce any further insight, so the last comments of any substance there were these...

First, a mild quibble with one of Marshall's assertions:
"As researched fully by folks on the pottery, glass and porcelain board and the antiques board and other researchers (and contrary to popular belief), no US law required the use of the wording 'Made in' countryname. However, England did require that wording for imports from some countries, and those exporting to the US often just followed suit. The country of origin is required for imports to the U.S.A., but no specific wording such as 'made in' is specified in the laws."

And finally, this fleshing out of some of what already had been said:
"Germany exported much plain white porcelain for decoration abroad, as did France and Czechoslovakia. Last year I had a Continental vase decorated in Chicago to a high standard (forgot the studio).
"France was metric as well as Germany. Britain went metric in currency nearly 40 years ago and adopted metric measurements later still (many people still work in Imperial measures).
"Special orders of this nature could still be executed by a small number of decorating studios in Europe. Such products are very expensive.
"Skilled decorators moved around internationally in search of work and I presume would usually have faithfully copied texts they had been asked to apply to pieces.
"The handwriting looks fluent and 'period' and from a long-apprenticed hand; it would be hard to fake."

Sorry we couldn't get a definitive "this-specific-artisan from this-specific-pottery in this-specific-year" answer. But the consensus did seem to be that the plate is roughly contemporary with the subject matter of the image, and the age ascribed to the lithograph linked above lends substance to those assessments of the plate.