Blue Mountain Pottery

Blue Mountain Pottery became famous for their green flow glazes that were fashioned after the colors of the trees in the northern ski resorts in Collingwood, Ontario back in the 1950s. They used the red clay discovered in the ski mountains and some of the early tourist pieces were made from U.S. white clay blanks. Later and especially for the millennium pieces in year 2000 they imported white clay from England, but the majority of the pieces were made from the local red clay. Blue Mountain Pottery sadly closed their doors in 2004 as a result of cheaper pottery competition from Japan.

Many of the employees branched out to their own pottery companies in the 60s and 70s with each developing their own unique style and glaze processes. The Blue Mountain factory continued to thrive long after the other potteries folded in the 80s. Blue Mountain was in deep trouble in the mid 80s and the retired former sales manager came back to revive the company. Under Mr. Robert Blair’s ownership BMP went on for 20 more years and their pottery became a Canadian icon. Today it is much sought after by avid collectors in Canada as well as many collectors in the U.S. and overseas especially in the British Isles, Australia, and New Zealand. Examples are periodically on display at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.

Collectors have been searching out some of the rarer glazes that were produced for a much shorter time than their traditional green color. Plum was made in the 1960s, Harvest Gold and Red were made in the 1970s and a collection of Mocha (brown) and Slate (Grey) were crafted by the head glazer in the 1980s. The early animals and functional tablewares were produced in the traditional green glaze. In 1967 for the Canadian Centennial Celebration Blue Mountain Pottery brought a potter over from Italy to head up their in-house wheel throne pottery with an observation deck where visitors could watch the pottery being thrown on the potter’s wheel. Look today for the head potter, Dominic Stanzione’s amazing large hand thrown vases that were produced in this observation tower from 1967 to 1973. The studio line vases were hand thrown and glazed in mostly Red, Mocha, and Slate and the much sought after trademark glaze of Dominic’s was the Orange and Gold and a Blue Crater type Glaze that was featured and won a prize at Canada's Centennial Expo exhibition in Montreal.

The Blue Mountain Pottery animals range from cats and dogs, to farm roosters and horses and on to water fish and ducks, forest and jungle animals. Many more hippos, tigers, kangaroos and sheep were exported to the U.S. and overseas. The only animal I can think of off hand that they didn’t produce was a goat. Their Romar Collection was a limited edition line of adult and baby animals with certificate. The Romar name came from the combination of the owner’s name Robert and his wife Marion. The first was the Thoroughbred Horse and Colt, then Jumbo Elephant with baby, etc. The most expensive animals today are still the Noah’s Ark Collection that consists of a double faced sitting Noah and 12 animals in the Noah’s Ark glaze of a matt gray with gold and brown highlights. These were mounted on a mahogany base and the giraffe is the hardest one to find . Not as many giraffes were made and of those made few survived as they were tall and thin and would easily tip over.

Miniature animals were made and sold first in their factory store. Many visitors who came to tour the factory on their Northern vacations would take home a $2.00 mini souvenir. They were made in about seven or eight different colors, and the brown white wash color referred to by the collectors as ghost is the hardest to find . A close second is the Dominic Orange Gold color, the Granite Navy with white color and/or the red color.

To be a Blue Mountain Pottery collector you can stick to the traditional green glazed animals and vases, only collect tableware and functional pieces, some will collect only a much loved glaze color and most like myself can’t resist a piece and collect all colors, all shapes and all sizes. The BMP collectors’ club has managed to document well over 1000 separate items and there is always a never before seen piece that will show up at their spring conventions. Their open house is always interesting as many Collingwood residents and former employees will bring new pieces in, sometimes to be identified but more often than not a piece will be discovered that was never catalogued or made available to the general public. Click on the Blue Mountain Pottery Title on this article to see some examples of BMP that's for sale in my Ecrater store.

Yart Sale - Click to go to Collectique's $5.00 off items

Etsy is having their version of a Yard Sale named Yart - there are lots of vintage items that have been reduced this week for the sale. It started this Wednesday and runs all weekend to June 14th. You can search using the keyword "Yart" under the vintage category as well as the other homemade and supply categories. Or check out the Yart Sale section in each store, some have the discount already applied to each individual item and others are offering that the discount will be credited back to your paypal account. Either way it's an excellent opportunity to get some great buys. I have reduced some popular items: Royal Brocade china, Jeanette Glasses, Indiana Pink Glass, Hazel-Atlas Numerology, England Royal Albert, Blue Mountain Pottery Country Charm, and Kraftware NYC.

Etsy Father's Day Business and Travel Guide

Here are the pages where you can find my vintage portable bar and the numerology shaker that has been advertised in the guide. The gift guide is no longer up but the items are still for sale. Here are the links to them.

Portable Travel Bar http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=27216070
Numerology Shaker http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=23024060

Or dine al fresco with this picnic backpack http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=27366282

Happy Earth Day 2009 Blue Mountain Pottery Redo

This latest project has been finished just in time for earth day. The restored jug will take it’s rightful place in my vintage Blue Mountain Pottery collection to be appreciated for another decade or two. The change-up came when someone recycled the jug for the first time and put on a new surface of blue and gold crackle paint. Originally it would have sat on a dark oak or rod iron table back in the early 70s, possibly holding a few artificial posies, and with it’s bright red glaze it would have been either the contrasting accent piece in the room or possibly blended in with the red shag carpet.


The crackle treatment was a lot easier to clean off than most, especially in the places where the crackle effect took and broke up the thicker blue finish. I used a cake decorating knife, some soap and water and many rags, positioned myself in front of the television and proceeded to scrape with short firm strokes until all the paint was removed. It took a few nights of scraping and washing but as you can see it was well worth the effort.

There was not a chip, crack or crazed line that needed to be disguised, it was a perfectly good piece. It was only recycled to match a new décor the first time around and now it has been recycled again, restored back to it’s original appearance and repurposed as a collector piece.

Given it’s original red color and ribbed body, I did have one disappointment. The red glaze of the 70s was not produced for very long. It is a piece that I did not have BUT I was hoping that it had been hand thrown in the pottery observation studio operated by Blue Mountain Pottery’s resident master potter, Dominic Stanzione. The studio was open from 1967 to around 1973 when this jug would have been produced and he did sign most of his work done on the pottery wheel. Dominic’s signed Mocha, Slate and Red pieces along with his signature color of yellow and orange, sometimes dubbed mustard and ketchup, are muchly sought after and coveted by the seasoned bmp collectors. Oh well, it’s still a beauty and it was a labor of love to restore it back to it’s original glaze. See the rest of my BMP collection at http://grandmagrace.piczo.com

Etsy Earth Day Sale is on all this week - Buy Vintage

To buy in the vintage Earth Day Sale search vmteamearth on etsy. The search will yield you more than 800 vintage finds where the prices are marked down from 20% to 50% . Collectique has marked down the entire shop by 20%.

How cool, clicking this title post above will take you to the 800 items.

Candle Case made at Dura Company in the1930s

Some history about the artist. Very early on Helen Dryden showed her artistic ability, she was trained in landscrape painting but had no real interest in it. She focused on fashion design and went from designing covers for vogue magazine 1909-22, to designing costumes for Broadway shows, and then in the late 1920s she did ads for Lux soap.

The Dura Company manufactured auto parts until the 1930s when Helen Dryden turned her attention to industrial design and created a decorative line at Dura. She became Art Director for the Dura Company and probably designed the above candle case for Eveready at the Dura factory. The Dura Company existed from 1922 to 1962 but very little else is known about the company. Their products were distributed by G.A. Soden and Co., from Chicago and I would love to find more of the Dura items that this talented lady created.

It was her work on the interior of the 1936 Studebaker Dictator and President models that established Helen Dryden as an important twentieth-century industrial designer. Although her work was developed under the watchful eyes of another renowned automotive designer, the Studebaker ads proclaimed, “It’s styled by Helen Dryden“.

You can purchase this candle case in my etsy shop. It works with a C battery and lights when you pick it up.

Etsy Vintage Market Team Earth Day Sale

The Earth Day Salebration video is up and running. Thanks to the team for including my numerology cocktail shaker, it's about 3 minutes into the video.




On etsy.com you can pull down the search tab, pick "Vintage, tags, titles" and then type in your search for "vmteamearth". It will bring up the listings of the items in this video and many more that will be on sale starting April 20th to April 25th, inclusive. Check back often in the Etsy.com website as items with this "vmteamearth" tags (vintage market team earth) will be added daily right up until the April 20th start and all will have markdowns anywhere from 20 to 50% off.