Estate Store

This vintage plate is about 10 1/4 inches in diameter. It is unmarked but in excellent condition.

I’ve seen turkeys like this before. It was late fall and you could smell the earth of the corn fields.  There was a rising dusky scent with a slight acridity brought on by the recent rains. We were digging holes, doing a survey for one of the relentless housing projects brought on from the twin pressures of urban sprawl and declining farm economies.

The owner of the land, the orchard, and the cider mill was a giant, descended from an early governor of the state. He bore an uncanny resemblance to Shrek, which had just come out several months earlier, which the crew found unsettling. We’d sling the company van through the mud to get lunch from his store and he’d tap the cash register keys, ringing up our purchases, each key struck one at a time and ever so slowly.  Tap, tap . . .tap: tap 2,tap . , tap 5, tap 0, tap +, tap 1, tap ., tap 5, tap 0, tap sub total, tap total, “That’ll be four dollars.” Each transaction averaged three minutes, we had a crew of six and travel time was about five minutes each way. That left two minutes for lunch, but as workers will when out of the range of management, we took some liberties with how we used company time.

So it was during this stint that one sunny day the local public radio station was playing classical music during lunch time (remember when they used to do that?). It was not the weepy, reedy, thin stuff, but hearty, “let’s go work hard and play hard” fare. They put on the fourth movement of Dvorak’s new world symphony and we sailed that company van back to the dig site. Mud slinging, corn stalks flying, the crazed crew boss in command and the crew regretting becoming anthropologists (what with ignominious death in a muddy corn field on the line). It was then, as we made the turn along the old fence line, that we saw him in the road. It was hard to tell who was more startled, the old tom, or Colonel Kurtz.  The tom reacted by displaying his feathers. the crew boss by slamming on the brakes. The van kicked up a bow wave of mud, inundating the old tom who looked perturbed, as only an aged and pissed off  turkey can.

He should have considered himself lucky as the cooking time for test-pit turkey, of his age and size is about three hours. And the orchard would have provided plenty of firewood.

Following the cessation of the hostile bloodletting and barbarism that was known as the Second World War the victorious allies occupied both Japan and Germany.

Part of the victor’s psychology was to remind the vanquished that they were under the control of their former foes. For items produced in the occupied countries for export to American markets this was in part accomplished by ensuring the makers marks bore an acknowledgement of this fact. In Japan, the items were to be clearly marked that they were Made in Occupied Japan.  This persisted until 1952.

In Germany things were a little different, and as a perhaps unintentional consequence of the political racism of the day the markings weren’t quite so overt. Instead of bearing a mark like Made in Occupied Germany, they instead had a slightly toned down notation of which zone of occupation they were made in.

This 7 1/2 inch diameter luncheon plate dates to that era (1945-1949) and bears a US Zone mark in addition to the makers mark. Interestingly the US Zone mark also notes that this pattern is known as Colwyn. The plate is in excellent condition.

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A nice set of Occupied Japan china. It is in good condition but it is missing a few pieces. I presume this was originally a set for 8 as there are still 8 cups and saucers and 8 luncheon or salad plates.  Unfortunately the rest of the set is somewhat incomplete. There are 7 dinner plates and 6 fruit or sauce bowls. There is also a lidded sugar bowl and a cream pitcher.

This set was made during the occupation of Japan by American forces, encompassing the period from 1945 to 1952. All the pieces are in good condition and they bear a Berkshire Ware makers mark.

I’ve seen similar vessel forms before, most notably in items made by Noritake, which makes me wonder if Berkshire Ware was a house brand or an importers imprint upon pieces made by the Noritake firm. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to track down if this is, or is not the case.

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