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There were many small potteries making stoneware and other ceramics for use in the kitchen, bedroom or farm. Most utensils made in America by the 1800s were made with thick pottery sides in simple shapes with almost no decoration.
The most expensive examples collected today have a design or name on the crock to trace for the age and maker. But unsigned pieces are often identified when sold at auctions. That takes an expert; a family legend is not enough.
Conestoga Auction Co. often sells antique and vintage stoneware. Is the side curved or straight? Is there a shaped rim? Is the interior glazed in the same color as the outside or is the inside different? Are there quirks in the shaping of the bottom? These clues can be recognized from a picture, but contact the auction and ask how they knew the maker of the unsigned piece.
By Terry and Kim Kovel
King Features Syndicate
The New Year is celebrated in many ways, but in the United States, there are always midnight celebrations with pictures of an old man representing the past and a baby, the new year. The other popular symbol is a clock of almost any style with the hands at midnight.
The early Greek idea of Baby New Year was a baby paraded around in a basket to welcome the new year. Then it became pictures of the Baby Jesus or a Baby New Year. But pictures were created for publications, and each year from 1907 to 1943, Joseph Leyendecker drew a different, humorous illustration of a Baby New Year for the Saturday Evening Post that have influenced all that followed. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was searching for the missing Baby New Year in a cartoon in the 1970s. Modern celebrations give gifts to the first newborn baby of the year at hospitals. We think the 19th-century baby buggy would be a nice gift for this year s first born.