Re: Len Castle Pin Dishes

**collectiques** on Wed Jan 21, 2009 4:09 pm

Look what I found today on my travels .... Very Happy

**TimCaulton** on Wed Jan 21, 2009 4:11 pm

collectiques wrote:Look what I found today on my travels ....

Oh! Is it marked?

**collectiques** on Wed Jan 21, 2009 4:15 pm

yep... is this the right mark and clay - brownie cream stuff?

**TimCaulton** on Wed Jan 21, 2009 4:19 pm

Yep that looks exactly right, well done. Ok so we should do a trade !

**collectiques** on Wed Jan 21, 2009 4:32 pm

I'm trying to find the thread that has a photo of one of yours in it... because I saw it and thought...that looks like Tim's pin dish...naww it can't be....

so if you hadn't have raved about blimmen pin dishes so much I'd probably have missed it... Razz

**TimCaulton** on Wed Jan 21, 2009 4:35 pm

A pin dish is not the sort of thing one wants to miss. Wish I could find some sometime

**collectiques** on Wed Jan 21, 2009 5:00 pm

I wonder how many he made...? was it like a series?

**TimCaulton** on Wed Jan 21, 2009 7:11 pm

I think it must have been in the hundreds, not sure how many designs there are. The new book has a page of them.

Titian on Mon Feb 23, 2009 2:26 pm

Hi Tim and Jo
Another couple of Castle pin dish designs. Are they from the 1950s? Both are marked, one with a small LC and the other with the large LC like yours Jo.

Tim, What designs do you have?

**TimCaulton** on Mon Feb 23, 2009 3:08 pm

Wow what great little dishes! Yep both for the 1950's. There seems to be a bit of variety in the marks used at that time, but all 50's stuff.

Here are the ones I have so far, the larger one is a later model.

**TimCaulton** on Mon Feb 23, 2009 3:11 pm

You know I have a birthday coming up in May

Titian on Mon Feb 23, 2009 4:10 pm

They look really great Tim. Love the blue one and the storks. Thanks so much for showing us the collection.
One question: one of my dishes looks to be a white/cream body with a redwash underglaze but the other seems to be genuine solid terracotta. Did he use both types of clay?
Thanks again.

**TimCaulton** on Mon Feb 23, 2009 5:26 pm

Titian wrote:They look really great Tim. Love the blue one and the storks. Thanks so much for showing us the collection.
One question: one of my dishes looks to be a white/cream body with a redwash underglaze but the other seems to be genuine solid terracotta. Did he use both types of clay?
Thanks again.

Yes there were a variety of clays used. One of the white ones is English with a red/brown wash over it. A deliberate design feature. Also the hight and angle of the sides to the base was thought out to correctly balance the cigarette. And the fine lines were created using a pointed matchstick.

I have a feeling that good suitable clay was not freely available in the 50's for potters, so it needed to be imported. Pat Perrin used to import English clay and mix it with NZ clay....possibly in the same era...just a guess at this stage. These are earthenware pots by the way. There are some pictures of them in the two Castle books.

**collectiques** on Mon Feb 23, 2009 6:06 pm

ohhhh...it's like pin dish heaven in here sunny

**TimCaulton** on Tue Feb 24, 2009 1:05 pm

My campaign of infusing knowledge is working ! Very Happy